Political pressure could delay US-Iraq security deal
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 11:09:00 06/21/2008
WASHINGTON -- It may take quite some time for Washington and Baghdad to reach a security deal on the future US military presence in Iraq amid rising political resistance in Iraq to any loss of sovereignty.
Given strains in the Iraqi political scene, exacerbated by US elections in November, President George W. Bush Thursday told Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki the United States was committed to a deal fully respecting Iraqi sovereignty, according to Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.
Thrashed out in tough closed-door dealing over the past several weeks, the deal is edging forward with some compromises. But there are lingering disagreements on key issues of the text, which would set up a legal framework for US military presence in Iraq after the UN mandate expires later this year.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Baghdad and Washington set a deadline of late July to get a deal done. But they remain at odds on the issue of US troops' immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, a traditional pillar of a Status of Forces Agreement.
The parties also differ on the number of bases US soldiers would have in Iraq long-term -- Washington wants about 50 -- and on the freedom to conduct operations and to arrest and detain Iraqis.
"The current situation poses a dilemma for the Iraqi government. It wants to restore its full sovereignty as soon as possible, while maintaining a coalition presence until Iraqi forces are able to assume the country's security responsibilities," said Nazar Janabi, a fellow at The Washington Institute and a specialist on Iraqi and Middle Eastern security issues.
"They're not anxious to put us out, what they're anxious to do is to reassert their own sovereignty partly for domestic reasons, so they need to win some of these arguments and show their population that they're not kowtowing to the United States," added Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institute.
Maliki is under rising pressure from Shiite forces to limit the US reach. Iran in turn has thrown itself into the debate, opposing any security agreement between Washington and Baghdad.
According to Steve Simon of the Council on Foreign Relations, "because
of their experience with the British, who at one time occupied Iraq ... there's a tremendous sensitivity among Iraqis about being under foreign domination."
In an effort to get a deal, the United States has made concessions.
According to Zebari, they have dropped their demand for immunity for US subcontractors in Iraq, a highly sensitive issue after the killings of 17 civilians in September 2007 in a shootout in Baghdad by agents of US private security contractor Blackwater.
Iraq in turn has ceased demanding that the United States commit to protect Iraq from domestic and foreign threats.
Experts have their doubts about whether a deal can be struck by July.
"Iraqi politicians are engaged in a rhetorical campaign against such an agreement, making it nearly impossible to finalize a deal by this summer," said Nazar Janabi.
If that happens, once the UN mandate expires, either it could be extended, or a temporary deal could be reached, noted O'Hanlon.
Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Chahristani, in an interview with The Guardian, suggested that might be the course, and that Iraq would like a short-term deal: "only short, for one or two years."
Stressed O'Hanlon: "The option we really don't have is getting all the US forces out by the end of December; we couldn't do it even if we wanted to."
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