Mr. Bush, Can We Go Home Now?

From Reuters:

Iraq ruling Shi'ites demand control over security

BAGHDAD, March 27 (Reuters) - Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Islamist Alliance bloc demanded on Monday that U.S. forces return control of security to the Iraqi government after what it called "cold-blooded" killings by troops of unarmed people in a mosque.

"The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior Alliance spokesman and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference.

President Bush, January 2005:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 - President Bush said in an interview on Thursday that he would withdraw American forces from Iraq if the new government that is elected on Sunday asked him to do so, but that he expected Iraq's first democratically elected leaders would want the troops to remain as helpers, not as occupiers.

In other news, Reuters is reporting that the U.S. is claiming the Iraqis faked the weekend mosque "massacre:"

U.S. troops defend raid, say Iraqis faked "massacre"

BAGHDAD, March 27 (Reuters) - U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi'ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque.

"After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was. There's been huge misinformation," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said.

Really, from this story the whole account is a bloody mess. You can't tell who's lying or if everybody's lying or if the liars even know they're lying. What a cock-up.

As a tangent, though, note the creative use of quotation marks in one passage of the story:

Giving the first U.S. military briefing on Sunday's events in Baghdad, Chiarelli said the raid by about 50 Iraqi special forces troops backed by some 25 U.S. "advisers" had been the fruit of long intelligence work. But he said he did not know the religious affiliation of 16 "insurgents" who were killed.