Where did you hear that? We're still supporting the Iraqi government militarily. We are teaching them how to stand on their own and letting them do some of the procurement, payroll, etc. for their national security forces with our guidance. Iraq's budget had a rather substantial surplus last year. We are encouraging them to spend their own money and we are right there beside them mentoring them through all of this.
This is the transition process and therefore, part of their learning and growing process.
As for anything for our allies, the coalition is still paying for all of that. The Iraq government has not been asked to procure or pay for anything utilized directly or indirectly by the coalition. And the coalition is still picking up the tab on several Iraqi initiatives as well. But we are working to transition that part over to them.
Supporting the Iraqi military is one thing.
I am talking about suppporting the Anbar Salvation Council. We didn’t support the Anbar tribes the last time they tried to opposed al-Qaeda in late 2005 and they were butchered.
Lets just say I heard from a friend in the service that America can’t depend on the Iraqi government for supporting the Anbar Salvation Council and if the Council is not strongly the Shieks like this one murdered by al-Qaeda will continue to die until Ramadi is again a base for al-Qaeda.
Basically the just of the message I got last week was the US needs to support the Iraq Salvation Council, we can’t leave it up to the Maliki government