"Ah have his word"

I could have sworn that on Wednesday and all over the chat shows on Sunday (when Joe Lieberman wasn't playing the role of Discount Store McCarthy) that Bush and his fellow lost travelers were claiming that THIS TIME Maliki was on board with their plans.

Because it sounds like he's on board as much as he was the last several times he was allegedly on board.

Just days after President Bush unveiled a new war plan calling for more than 20,000 additional American troops in Iraq, the heart of the effort — a major push to secure the capital — faces some of its fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government officials...

...the signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems — ranging from a contested chain of command to how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous districts — that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”

No fucking shit. Maliki's goal is to crack down on the Sunnis so the Shiia can purge them out of Baghdad and into the shittiest parts of Iraq where he can put a cordon around them and have their asses kicked repeatedly. The same goal possessed by the folks he will not touch, the Mahdi Army. As stated in Newsweek,

If the 20,000 additional American troops being sent to the Iraqi capital focus primarily on Sunni insurgents, there's a chance the Shiite militias might get bolder. Colonel Duke puts it bluntly: "[The Mahdi Army] is sitting on the 50-yard line eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them."