Iraq's new Baghdad Bob comes to Washington

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/washington/09rubaie.html

Official Takes Case to U.S., but Skeptics Don’t Budge

WASHINGTON, May 8 — Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser to Iraq’s prime minister, undertook on Tuesday what may have been his most challenging mission yet: trying to persuade American lawmakers who have all but run out of patience that still more patience is required.

In a whirlwind series of closed-door meetings that began with Representative John P. Murtha and ended with Senator Carl Levin — two Democrats who have been leading the charge for American troop withdrawals — Mr. Rubaie sought to make the case that an American pullout would be catastrophic.

“I know that they are running out of patience, and I understand this very well,” Mr. Rubaie said in a Monday interview in which he outlined his case. “And we have to play the political game. But I feel we are on the last mile of a walk toward success, and if they let go and don’t take our hand, I feel that we are going to lose everything.”

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“We believe that some people in D.C. are asking the government to do something not in their hand — beyond the capacity of the government,” he said. “If you ram it down our throats and sync it to Washington because of the election cycle,” he warned, then “things will crumble.”