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This might dampen the rosy picture Shrub and his boy Petraeus are spinning.

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Sadr's movement pulls out of Iraq alliance

By Dominic Evans and Waleed IbrahimSat Sep 15, 3:23 PM ET

The political movement loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr quit Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Alliance on Saturday, leaving Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition in a precarious position in parliament.

The move further weakens the ruling coalition, which even before the defection had failed to push through laws aimed at reconciling Iraq's warring majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs.

Maliki's government now enjoys the support of only about half of Iraq's 275 lawmakers, although it could survive with the support of a handful of independent lawmakers.

"The political committee has declared the withdrawal of the Sadr bloc from the (Shi'ite) alliance because there was no visible indication that the demands of Sadr's bloc were being met," the Sadr movement said in a statement released at a news conference in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070915/ts_nm/iraq_dc

The sad thing is,is that pretty much everyone agrees that everything they have said is basically a lie. I believe all the major papers on Friday, basically fact checked his speech, and determined that his assertions were false.

The fact is, it doesn't matter. He seems to have this strange hold on the rest of the government and they are afraid to stand up to him.

My own feeling is that his spying programs first task was to dig up something on every member of Congress.

And if this is only a political strategy on the Dems. part, than it disgusts me that they put the lives of all our soldiers on the line, just so that they are sure to take back the government in 2008.

Our government really makes me ill.