Will/should Iraq accept the proposed long-term security pact with the U.S.?

[BrainGlutton]

Many are balking.

Opposition has been growing in Iraq to the proposed security pact with the U.S., which will replace the current U.N. mandate and could provide for a long-term American military role in this country.

Much of the opposition comes from anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, but statements critical of the deal have also been issued by mainstream Sunni and Shiite figures who fear it will undermine Iraqi sovereignty.

Chief government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi negotiators have a “vision and a draft that is different” from the Americans but that the talks, which began in March, were still in an early stage.

“There is great emphasis by the Iraqi government on fully preserving the sovereignty of Iraq in its lands, skies, waters and its internal and external relations,” al-Dabbagh said. “The Iraqi government will not accept any article that infringes on sovereignty and does not guarantee Iraqi interests.”

U.S. officials have refused to comment on the talks until they are complete but have insisted they are not seeking permanent bases. The agreement is to replace a U.N. mandate for U.S.-led forces that expires at the end of the year.

President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said they were hoping to finish the negotiations by July to allow time for the Iraqi parliament to sign off on the deal.

But Iraqi officials said last month that talks were unlikely to wrap up by July because of wide differences over several issues, including immunity enjoyed by U.S. troops from prosecution in Iraqi courts and rules governing U.S. military operations.

Meanwhile, in related news, new “mentor” contracts are being negotiated with Iraqi ministries.

The contracts call for new spending, from supplying mentors to officials with Iraq’s Defense and Interior ministries to establishing a U.S.-marshal-type system to protect Iraqi courts. Contractors would provide more than 100 linguists with secret clearances and deliver food to Iraqi detainees at a new, U.S.-run prison.

The proposals reflect multiyear commitments. The mentor contract notes that the U.S. military “desires for both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense to become mostly self-sufficient within two years,” a time outside some proposals for U.S. combat troop withdrawal. The mentors sought would “advise, train [and] assist . . . particular Iraqi officials” who work in the Ministry of Defense, which runs the Iraqi army, or the Ministry of Interior, which runs the police and other security units.

<snip>

The marshals service would be organized by the State Department’s bureau responsible for developing rule of law programs in Iraq. It “has plans to create an Iraqi service to be known as the Judicial Protection Service (JPS), modeled to some degree after the U.S. Marshals Service, that will ensure the safe conduct of judicial proceedings and protect judges, witnesses, court staff, and court facilities,” a notice published last month said.

<snip>

Another contract noticed last week previews the opening, apparently in September, of a U.S.-run prison, now labeled a Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center, which is to be located at Camp Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad. The new contract calls for providing food for “up to 5,000 detainees” and will also cover 150 Iraqi nationals, who apparently will work at the facility. The contract is to run for one year, with an option year to follow.

The U.S. holds about 20,000 Iraqis at two facilities today, mostly in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and the rest at Camp Cropper near Baghdad. Along with the facility at Camp Taji, which is expected to hold Iraqis detained in Baghdad, another new reconciliation center, mainly for Sunnis, is being built at Ramadi in Anbar province, where many of these detainees were captured.

In March, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, who runs the detainee program, told reporters that, on average. Iraqi detainees remain in a U.S. facility for 11 months.

But that might not be the case for the roughly 9,000 Iraqis whom he described as having “a very rigorous view of an ideology that we would broadly categorize as al-Qaeda.” They are headed to the new reconciliation centers for what could be longer stays.

I thought I was familiar with just about every modern iteration of doublespeak, but I’ve never before heard prisons referred to as “reconciliation centers.”

[Der_Trihs]

Will/should Iraq accept the proposed long-term security pact with the U.S.?

I don’t know if they will; quite likely depending on how hard we lean on them. They shouldn’t, because we are their enemies.

[BrainGlutton]

@Der Trihs

I don’t know if they will; quite likely depending on how hard we lean on them.

At this point, what’ve we got to lean with?!

[Der_Trihs]

@BrainGlutton

At this point, what’ve we got to lean with?!

The threat of leaving. While the general Iraqi public has every reason to hate us and want us gone, the collaborationist “government” knows that when we leave they will have to flee the country or die. And the “Iraq” that will or won’t choose to accept anything we demand is that “government”; not the Iraqi people.

[BrainGlutton]

Update:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday.

<snip>

“The majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any military-security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq,” the letter to the leaders of Congress said.

<snip>

A Sunni Iraqi lawmaker, Khalaf Al-Ulayyan, founder of the National Dialogue Council, said bilateral talks on a long-term security deal should be shelved until American troops leave – and until there is a new government in Washington.

“We prefer to delay until there is a new administration in the United States,” he said. The United States elects a new president in November; Democrat Barack Obama, who clinched his party’s nomination this week, is among senators sponsoring a bill requiring any long-term pact with Iraq be submitted to Congress for approval.

Guess the “threat of leaving” ain’t gonna have much weight.

[RTFirefly]

@Der Trihs

The threat of leaving. While the general Iraqi public has every reason to hate us and want us gone, the collaborationist “government” knows that when we leave they will have to flee the country or die. And the “Iraq” that will or won’t choose to accept anything we demand is that “government”; not the Iraqi people.

I think you’re considerably misstating the situation in Iraq. Hakim’s Shi’ite faction (the former SCIRI) is part of the government, and that’s not chicken feed - that’s the other main Shi’ite faction, besides the Sadrists. Maliki, who IIRC is allied with Hakim’s faction but not part of it, might be out on a limb if we leave, but the government as a whole is not without popular support.

Their positions in government might evaporate if we leave, because one way or another, the Sadrists and Sunnis are going to demand a share of power. But I don’t see any reason to expect that their lives would be forfeit, even though most Iraqis want us to get our asses out of their country.

However, it seems pretty obvious that our presence in country, especially our role in propping up the government and shielding it from the other factions (including helping them launch military strikes on their domestic rivals), strengthens the government’s reluctance to negotiate with the other factions and share power with them.

[elucidator]

This could be our ticket out. If the Bushiviks can spin this as “victory”, our troops may be headed home pretty soon.

How about “The Iraqi people have the confidence and the will to take control of their own security. This is, and always has been, the Ultimate Goal (Vers. 6.7, revised). Clearly, the visionary policies of The Leader have born fruitbats…”

[John_Mace]

No ticket out under Bush. This is about what happens 5-10 years out, not what happens between now and Jan.

[elucidator]

A very good preliminary analysis is available here…

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_06/013855.php

from the website of the Washington Monthly

There is considerable murk in the mix, for one thing, we seem to be subject to conflicting “leaks”. A lot depends on your opinion of the Independent and the liklihood that they have definitive sources. Your correspondent from the conservative wing of the extreme left offers no opinion, it is, in the words of famous paranoid J.J. Angleton “a wilderness of mirrors”.

Oh, and WaMo is somewhat tepidly leftish, so tighty rightys are advised to proceed with Shields Up, though half strength should be sufficient.

[BrainGlutton]

Now the London Independent is reporting a “secret deal” in the works:

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

Not clear, though, if this is anything more than what was covered in the OP.

[Der_Trihs]

@RTFirefly

Their positions in government might evaporate if we leave, because one way or another, the Sadrists and Sunnis are going to demand a share of power. But I don’t see any reason to expect that their lives would be forfeit, even though most Iraqis want us to get our asses out of their country.

Because they are collaborators. If they stay in Iraq, they will have literally millions of mortal enemies, and no more American military to protect them. People have been murdered for working with Americans even with our army there.

[elucidator]

US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

And this just in…

…The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday…

If it wasn’t the Bushiviks, I would never believe it…

(The link seems to insist on printing, but the story is too wierd not to be linked, you guys would think I was making shit up…)

[BrainGlutton]

More details leaking out:

BAGHDAD -Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed “status of forces” agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely.

Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would have effectively handed over to the United States the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran.

<snip>

Other conditions sought by the United States include control over Iraqi air space up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation with two years notice from either side, lawmakers said.

The chutzpah . . . it burns . . .

[BrainGlutton]

And now it appears that the above set of demands has come down from what they wanted to start with!

Abadi and other Iraqi officials said that assertion is undercut by the U.S. request to maintain 58 long-term bases in Iraq. The Americans originally pushed for more than 200 facilities across the country, according to Hadi al-Amiri, a powerful lawmaker who is the head of the Badr Organization, the former armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the country’s largest Shiite political party.

Iraqi officials said the U.S. government also demanded the continuation of several current policies: authority to detain and hold Iraqis without turning them over to the Iraqi judicial system, immunity from Iraqi prosecution for both U.S. troops and private contractors, and the prerogative for U.S. forces to conduct operations without approval from the Iraqi government.

The American negotiators also called for continued control over Iraqi airspace and the right to refuel planes in the air, according to Askari, positions he said added to concerns that the United States was preparing to use Iraq as a base to attack Iran.

[Der_Trihs]

@BrainGlutton

And now it appears that the above set of demands has come down from what they wanted to start with!

It’s pretty obvious that despite our blathering about “democracy” and “sovereignty”, this was a war of conquest, and we look at Iraq as a conquered country that should just submit to our every whim and abuse. We simply aren’t willing to admit it, or we’d just out-and-out say “obey or die”.

So, no, Iraq shouldn’t accept a “security pact” or any other arrangement with us they can avoid. We are their enemy, not their friend, and a dishonest, self deluding one at that.

[tagos]

No genuine government could agree to these terms, which are a surrender of sovereignty to an occupying power. If they agree then they prove themselves to be traitors and quislings.

[BrainGlutton]

The talks are now dead. No hint they’ll be revived during the current Administration.

Which raises the question of what will be the legal position of our forces in Iraq after the UN mandate expires at the end of this year.