Iraq Expects Positive Answer U.S. on Security Deal
The Associated Press reportedSunday that Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has sent a draft of a security deal between Iraq and the U.S. back to Washington, asking for certain important changes. Maliki does not wan to let his country’s Parliament vote on the deal until the Americans accept some changes, because he fears that the deal will not be approved.
‘The current draft calls for all U.S. forces to leave by Dec. 31, 2011 unless Iraq asks them to stay. It also gives Iraqi courts limited jurisdiction over U.S. troops accused of major crimes committed off post and off duty,’ the AP explained in its report.
‘Al-Maliki wants more jurisdiction over U.S. troops and guarantees that Iraqi territory will not be used by the U.S. to launch attacks on neighboring countries. Baghdad also wants to remove language that could allow the U.S. to stay beyond the end of 2011.’
If Washington does not agree with the changes, and if Iraq’s Parliament will indeed vote against the current bill, the U.S. will have ‘to suspend all security and assistance operations in the country by the end of the year.’ This would cause tremendous problems.
The surge was highly successful, but if U.S. troops are withdrawn prematurely, many fear that civil war will once again erupt and that Iran will act more openly inside Iraq.
As such, it seems that the U.S. does not have a choice. It has to reach an agreement for it cannot risk seeing Iraq fall prey to extremists.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
