McCain once again demonstrates that he's no straightalker when it comes to the issues that are most important to this country. He makes sure to get the whole Basra/ceasefire incident completely backwards which only undermines his credibility as a foreign policy man. Is he even following the fighting in Iraq? It was Maliki that went to Iran and then asked Sadr to broker a ceasefire.

Olbermann: ...that Sadr had only called for the ceasefire after members of Maliki’s government asked Sadr to do so in a during a secret trip to meet with Sadr in Iran.—making McCain wrong about the facts on his signature issue, making Sadr not Maliki the victor in this conflict by McCain’s own reasoning. And making Iran and not McCain and not the US the mediator of choice for Iraq’s two top Shi’a factions. The Maliki government and the Sadrists.

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Think Progress has the transcript and more:

McCain: It was al-Sadr that declared the ceasefire, not Maliki. … With respect, I don’t think Sadr would have declared the ceasefire if he thought he was winning. Most times in history, military engagements, the winning side doesn’t declare the ceasefire. The second point is, overall, the Iraqi military performed pretty well. … The military is functioning very effectively.

Finally, the New York Times reported Friday that at least 1,000 Iraqi national soldiers deserted or refused to fight in Basra.