Treaty Tensions Mount as Iraq Tells the US It Wants All Troops Back in Barracks

[babylonsister]

Treaty Tensions Mount as Iraq Tells the US It Wants All Troops Back in Barracks
by Deborah Haynes


BAGHDAD - American troops in Iraq would be confined to their bases and private security guards subject to local law if Iraq gets its way in negotiations with the US over the future status of American forces.


According to a senior Iraqi official, the negotiations between the two allies became so fraught recently that President Bush intervened personally to defuse the situation. On Thursday he telephoned Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, to assure him that Washington was not seeking to undermine Iraq’s sovereignty and that America would reconsider any contentious part of the agreement.

The current United Nations mandate for US troops expires at the end of this year and Washington wants to conclude a bilateral agreement with Baghdad for the future deployment of US forces. There are just over 150,000 US troops in Iraq living on scores of bases across the country, from little 30-men outposts to sprawling camps often built around old Iraqi army barracks.

Construction work over the past five years has turned these bases into small towns of trailers, hangars and blast walls, equipped with a Pizza Hut, Starbucks-style coffee shops, cinemas and swimming pools.

Among a litany of sticking-points surrounding the status of forces agreement (SOFA) between the two countries are Iraqi concerns over how many US bases will remain in the country and who will be in control of Iraqi air space.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/09/9498/

[Old and In the Way]

1. Imagine that.

The Iraqi people don't like us occupying their country and dictating the terms of our presence there. Damn, this democracy thing is a real problem when our interests and the Iraqi's diverge to the obvious extent that it exists today. Mission Demolished...get our troops out of there.

[babylonsister]

2. 'Mission Demolished' -amen! They don't want us there, we really

should be going.

[Monk06]

3. This isn't a security 'agreement' it's an unconditional surrender document.

Maliki knows if he goes along with it he will
be the most hated man in the Muslim world and
his life won't be worth a plugged dinar.