Do they even want us there?

As Iraq policy is being debated in Congress, one question that must be asked is if the Iraqi's even want us there. It is their country after all.

This story on Yahoo News this morning suggests the Iraqi's wouldn't mind us leaving.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training.

Others in the Iraqi government have taken it a step further...

But one of his top aides, Hassan al-Suneid, rankled at the assessment, saying the U.S. was treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory." He sharply criticised the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations, embarassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in its campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq.

al-Suneid then added...

....the U.S. authorities have embarrassed al-Maliki' government through acts such as constructing a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's eastern slum of Sadr City. He said the U.S. use of airstrikes to hit suspected insurgent positions also kills civilians.

"This embarrasses the government in front of its people," he said, calling the civilian deaths a "human rights violation."

Things won't change for the better in Iraqi if the United States is viewed as an occupying force. It doesn't matter what Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or John McCain thinks. It only matters what the Iraqi's think. If they consider us an occupying force then the ability for progress in the country is unattainable. It is that simple. Unfortunately, it is looking more and more like many Iraqi's consider us as occupiers.