Details of Iraq pact reveal US debacle
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - The final draft of the United States-Iraq Status of Forces
agreement on the US military presence represents an even more crushing defeat
for the policy of the George W Bush administration than previously thought, the
final text reveals.
The final draft, dated October 13, not only imposes unambiguous deadlines for
withdrawal of US combat troops by 2011, but makes it extremely unlikely that a
US non-combat presence will be allowed to remain in Iraq for training and
support purposes beyond the 2011 deadline for withdrawal of all US combat
forces.
Furthermore, Shi'ite opposition to the pact as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty
makes the prospects for passage of even this agreement by the Iraqi parliament
doubtful. Pro-government Shi'ite parties, the top Shi'ite clerical body in the
country and a powerful
movement led by nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that recently mobilized
hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in protest against the pact, are all
calling for its defeat.
At an Iraqi cabinet meeting on Tuesday, ministers raised objections to the
final draft, and a government spokesman said the draft would not be submitted
to parliament in its current form. But US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
told three news agencies on Tuesday that the door was "pretty far closed" on
further negotiations.
In the absence of an agreement approved by the Iraqi parliament, US troops in
Iraq will probably be confined to their bases once the United Nations mandate
expires on December 31.
The clearest sign of the dramatically reduced US negotiating power in the final
draft is the willingness of the United States to give up extraterritorial
jurisdiction over US contractors and their employees and over US troops in the
case of "major and intentional crimes" that occur outside bases and while off
duty. The United States has never allowed a foreign country to have
jurisdiction over its troops in any previous Status of Forces agreement.
But even that concession is not enough to satisfy anti-occupation sentiments
across all Shi'ite political parties. Sunni politicians hold less decisive
views on the pact, and Kurds are supportive.
Bush administration policymakers did not imagine when the negotiations began
formally in March that its bargaining position on the issue of the US military
presence could have turned out to be so weak in relation with its own "client"
regime in Baghdad.
They were confident of being able to legitimize a US presence in Iraq for
decades after the fighting had ended, just as they did in South Korea. Gates
had declared in June 2007 that US troops would be in Iraq "for a protracted
period of time".
The secret US draft handed to Iraqi officials March 7 put no limit on either
the number of US troops in Iraq or the duration of their presence or their
activities. It would have authorized US forces to "conduct military operations
in Iraq and to detain certain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons
of security", according to an April 8 article in The Guardian quoting from a
leaked copy of the draft.
When Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a timetable for complete US
withdrawal in early July, the White House insisted that it would not accept
such a timetable and that any decision on withdrawal "will be
conditions-based". It was even hoping to avoid a requirement for complete
withdrawal in the agreement, as reflected in false claims to media July 17 that
Bush and Maliki had agreed on the objective of "further reduction of US combat
forces from Iraq" rather than complete withdrawal.
By early August, however, Bush had already reduced its negotiating aims. The US
draft dated August 6, which was translated and posted on the Internet by Iraqi
activist Raed Jarrar, demanded the inclusion of either "targeted times" or
"time targets" to refer to the dates for withdrawal of US forces from all
cities, town and villages and for complete combat troop withdrawal from Iraq,
suggesting that they were not deadlines.
When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Baghdad on August 21, the US
accepted for the first time a firm date of 2011 for complete withdrawal, giving
up the demand for ambiguous terms. However, the August 6 draft included a
provision that the US could ask Iraq to "extend" the date for complete
withdrawal of combat troops, based on mutual review of "progress" in achieving
the withdrawal.
Because it had not yet been removed from the text, US officials continued to
claim to reporters that the date was "conditions-based", as Karen DeYoung
reported in the Washington Post on August 22.
The administration also continued to hope for approval of a residual force.
American officials told DeYoung the deal would leave "tens of thousands of US
troops inside Iraq in supporting roles ... for an unspecified time". That hope
was based on a paragraph of the August 6 draft providing that the Iraqi
government could request such a force, with the joint committee for operations
and coordination determining the "tasks and level of the troops ..."
But the October 13 final draft, a translation of which was posted by Jarrar on
his website October 20, reveals that the Bush administration has been forced to
give up its aims of softening the deadline for withdrawal and of a residual
non-combat force in the country. Unlike the August 6 draft, the final text
treats any extension of that date as a modification of the agreement, which
could be done only "in accordance to constitutional procedures in both
countries".
That is an obvious reference to approval by the Iraqi parliament.
Given the present level of opposition to the agreement within the Shi'ite
community, that provision offers scant hope of a residual US non-combat force
in Iraq after 2011.
Another signal of Iraqi intentions is a provision of the final draft limiting
the duration of the agreement to three years - a date coinciding with the
deadline for complete withdrawal from Iraq. The date can be extended only by a
decision made by the "constitutional procedures in both countries".
The final draft confirms the language of the August 6 draft requiring that all
US military operations be subject to the approval of the Iraqi government and
coordinated with Iraqi authorities through a joint US-Iraqi committee.
The negotiating text had already established by August 6 that US troops could
not detain anyone in the country without a "warrant issued by the specialized
Iraqi authorities in accordance with Iraqi law" and required that the detainees
be turned over to Iraqi authorities within 24 hours. The October 13 "final
draft" goes even further, requiring that any detention by the US, apart from
its own personnel, must be "based on an Iraqi decision".
The collapse of the Bush administration's ambitious plan for a long-term US
presence in Iraq highlights the degree of unreality that has prevailed among
top US officials in both Washington and Baghdad on Iraqi politics. They
continued to see the Maliki regime as a client which would cooperate with US
aims even after it was clear that Maliki's agenda was sharply at odds with that
of the United States.
They also refused to take seriously the opposition to such a presence even
among the Shi'ite clerics who had tolerated it in order to obtain Shi'ite
control over state power.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing
in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was
published in 2006.
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