Good News/Bad News (Update 1)

Previous post here.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki corrects published comments regarding that Sadr City raid:

Maliki said the raid had his backing but argued that it was conducted in a heavy handed way that could wreck a political deal he had worked on with Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical anti-American cleric who controls the Mehdi Army Shi'ite militia. <...> Maliki had appeared to disavow the raid at a news conference on Wednesday, saying he had not been consulted, but he told Reuters his problem was with an operation in the same area which was part of the hunt for a kidnapped American soldier.

"We knew about the first part but they did not tell us about the second part," Maliki said.
<...>
Masked gunmen grabbed the American serviceman at the home of relatives he went to visit in Baghdad after leaving the fortified Green Zone, according to U.S. military officials who have identified him as a linguist of Iraqi descent.

Maliki said the man's brother was snatched with him but later let go. "The brother who was released said he been abducted by the Mehdi Army but we don't know what Mehdi Army means anymore," Maliki said.

"We asked the Sadr movement to look for him and they swear they know nothing about him," Maliki said. Sunni insurgents and loyalists of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sometimes also posed as Mehdi Army fighters in the same black garb, he said.

U.S. military spokesmen were not immediately available to comment on Maliki's remarks.

(And note this is titled Update 1...)