Iraq security accord nears final shape
Some troops likely to stay beyond 2011
By Karin Laub | Associated Press
August 23, 2008
chicagotribune.com
BAGHDAD — Iraq's deputy foreign minister affirmed Friday that June 30, 2009, would be the deadline for a U.S. troop withdrawal from the country's major cities, as more details emerged of the joint security accord that U.S. and Iraqi negotiators are working out.
Mohammed Hamoud Bidan also told CNN that jurisdiction would be determined by a joint legal committee in cases of U.S. citizens who commit major crimes against Iraqi civilians.
The draft agreement says that private U.S. contractors would be subject to Iraqi law, unlike at present, but American negotiators held firm on U.S. troops remaining under American jurisdiction. The question of jurisdiction has been a major sticking point.
The pullout schedule would have U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by 2011, Iraqi officials familiar with the document said. That schedule, however, could be modified if the two governments agree.
Moreover, it is likely under any agreement that a residual U.S. force would remain in Iraq beyond 2011 to continue training and advising the country's security forces, which are still lacking in areas of combat support such as intelligence, surveillance, logistics and air power.
President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke Friday by secure video as work on the plan to withdraw U.S. troops continued. They spoke a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad to discuss the deal.
"There are still discussions ongoing," said spokesman Gordon Johndroe, with the president in Texas. "It's not done until it's done. And the discussions are really ongoing. And ongoing and ongoing. But hopefully drawing to a conclusion."
Popular opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq is still powerful, however, and several thousand supporters of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr protested the emerging agreement Friday.
Sadr and other critics fear that the deal will bind the U.S. and Iraq in a long-term security relationship instead of restoring Iraqi sovereignty, effectively leaving Iraq a U.S. colony.
In Kufa, about 2,000 Sadrists marched after Friday noon prayers, chanting, "No to America," and raising pictures of Sadr. They held up banners reading "The dubious agreement means a permanent colonization of Iraq" and "Iraq is not a U.S. colony."
An aide to Sadr told the worshipers that the emerging deal goes against the will of the Iraqi people. |
