Five minutes prior to his meeting with the US President in Baghdad, the Prime Minister of Iraq was told of the arrival of the US President on a secret trip. One of the remarks made by the President and repeated on TV is "Thank you for having me". As if poor al-Maliki had any say in the whole affair.

On the PBS TV program "The News Hour", Senator R. Lugar (Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee" repeatedly referred to al-Maliki as the President of Iraq. The transcript of the program does not reflect this, you have to watch a video of the program

The Bush administration repeats the mantra "we fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." Them" are the insurgents in Iraq. To the average Iraqi who was oppressed by Saddam, suffered from years of sanctions and now endures the mayhem in Iraq, this only means that his life is not as valued or important as a US citizen.