ac·qui·esced, ac·qui·esc·ing, ac·qui·esc·es
To consent or comply passively or without protest.

al-Maliki had not consented or complied passively or without protest to a reported White House plan to send as many as 9,000 more U.S. troops to Baghdad alone.

This does not translate to Maliki doesn't want more U.S. troops and it is not from al-Maliki himself. Therefore it is fiction.

"in a speech on Saturday he vowed to crush illegal armed groups "regardless of sect or politics.""

There is no military draft in the US either.


Reuters Tuesday, January 09, 2007
BAGHDAD, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The Iraqi government would welcome an increase in U.S. troop numbers in Baghdad expected to be announced on Wednesday by President George W. Bush, the government spokesman said on Tuesday.

As U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with gunmen in central Baghdad, Ali al-Dabbagh said in the first official comment by the government on the expected U.S. move that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki welcomed Bush's new strategy on Iraq.

"The Iraqi government does not object to an increase in coalition forces. The Iraqi government supports this trend," Dabbagh told a news conference.

Not far from the heavily fortified Green Zone compound where Dabbagh spoke, U.S. and Iraqi forces battled insurgents in Haifa Street, a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

U.S. fighter jets screamed over the city with unusual intensity and military helicopters were seen hovering above Haifa Street, witnesses said.

Battling growing sectarian violence, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has announced a major security plan for Baghdad, vowing to crack down on violence on all sides.

Dabbagh said the raid in Haifa Street was aimed at eliminating "terrorist hideouts" and said U.S. and Iraqi forces would avoid "mistakes" made in past plans to secure Baghdad, which is seen a key to pacifying the rest of Iraq.

"Any failure ... would lead to grave consequences and disasters. We can not accept failure," he said.

Bush told U.S. lawmakers he has decided to send about 20,000 more troops to Iraq in a plan to be announced on Wednesday.

The White House said Bush, who is reshuffling his commanders and diplomats in Iraq, would address Americans on his new Iraq plan on Wednesday at 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Thursday).

Gordon Smith, one of Bush's fellow Republicans, was among senators who attended a White House meeting to discuss the president's emerging strategy for Iraq, which Democrats have called an escalation of the war.

Smith said Bush told him and several other senators that the plan for the additional troops had originated with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Maliki had made commitments that the Iraqi government and military would take steps to strengthen security in exchange for more U.S. troops, Smith said.

Seeking to salvage the U.S. mission in an unpopular war nearly four years after the invasion, Bush's new plan is also expected to include setting "benchmarks" for Maliki to meet, aimed at easing sectarian violence and stabilising the country.

It is also expected to contain a job creation programme for Iraqis likely to cost more than $1 billion.

Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, has so far resisted U.S. pressure to crack down on militias loyal to his fellow Shi'ites, which the United States has said are the most serious threat to Iraq. But in a speech on Saturday he vowed to crush illegal armed groups "regardless of sect or politics."

A new clandestine video posted on the Internet showed the body of Saddam Hussein lying on a hospital trolley with a vivid red wound in his throat after being hanged.

The 27-second clip, seen on Tuesday, showed a sheet being removed to reveal Saddam's neck severely twisted and with a smear of blood on his left cheek.            

It was the third illicit film of Saddam's demise to emerge since he was hanged on Dec. 30 in an execution that inflamed sectarian passions in Iraq and attracted      

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, which says it is struggling to avert an all-out sectarian civil war, is investigating another illicit film showing Shi'ite officials taunting Saddam on the gallows that has sparked anger among Saddam's fellow minority Sunni Arabs.