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November 27th,
2008 - Iraqi Parliament Approves Landmark US Military Pact |
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Iraqi Parliament Approves Landmark
US Military Pact By Agence France Presse November 27, 2008 Baghdad - Iraq's parliament
on Thursday approved a landmark military pact that will see all US troops
withdraw by the end of 2011, eight years after the invasion that toppled
Saddam Hussein and plunged the country into chaos. After 11 months of hard-nosed
negotiations with Washington and a flurry of internal negotiations leading up
to the vote, the pact was approved by 149 members of the 198 who attended the
session of the 275-member assembly. Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki's Shiite-led government succeeded in corralling a comfortable
majority to support the historic agreement, including the main blocs
representing the country's Sunni and Kurdish minorities. "This is an historic
day for the great people of Iraq," Maliki said in a televised address after
the parliamentary vote. "We have achieved one
of our most important accomplishments by signing an agreement for the
withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, and restoring the sovereignty that we
lost more than two decades ago," he said. "(The agreement)
restores Iraq and its national sovereignty, preserves its wealth, and returns
it to the international community as a free country." The agreement was approved
by the cabinet a week ago and is now virtually guaranteed to be ratified by
Iraq's presidential council. US President George W. Bush
hailed parliament's approval of the "historic" agreement, saying in
a statement that it "affirms the growth of Iraq's democracy and
increasing ability to secure itself." The measure would govern
some 150,000 US troops stationed in over 400 bases when their UN mandate
expires at the end of the year, giving the Iraqi government veto power over
virtually all of their operations. It marks a coming-of-age for
Maliki's government, which drove a hard bargain with Washington, securing a
number of concessions over nearly a year of tough negotiations. The accord has still drawn
fire from certain quarters, including followers of the hardline Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, who reject any agreement with the United States. As the voting on the pact
began, several Sadrist MPs pounded tables in a bid to hinder the vote,
chanting "Yes, yes to Iraq... No, no, to the occupation," but the
30-member bloc failed to defeat the agreement. The vote came after a flurry
of last-minute negotiations in which the main Sunni parties secured a package
of political reforms from the government and a commitment to hold a
referendum on the pact no later than July 30. Should the Iraqi government
decide to cancel the pact after the referendum it would have to give
Washington one year's notice, meaning that troops would be allowed to remain
in the country only until the summer of 2010. The international agreement
will be binding on US president-elect Barack Obama when he assumes office
next year, but he could also unilaterally cancel the pact with a year's
notice or withdraw all US troops at any time. The pact was made possible
in part by dramatic improvements in security over the past year, with US and
Iraqi forces largely containing the violence and the chaos that erupted in
the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion and Saddam's ouster. But moments before the vote,
two people were killed and more than two dozen wounded in separate suicide
bombings in northern Iraq targeting local security forces, underscoring the
lingering violence in the country. In the bloodiest attack,
south of the city of Mosul, a suicide car bomb rammed into a police patrol,
killing two civilians and wounding 25 others, including 15 policemen, police
said. The US military considers
Mosul the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iraq won a number of
concessions in the agreement, including a hard timeline for withdrawal, the
right to search US military cargo and the right to try US soldiers for crimes
committed while they are off their bases and off-duty. The agreement also requires
that US troops obtain Iraqi permission for all military operations, and that
they hand over the files of all detainees in US custody to the Iraqi
authorities, who will decide their fate. The London-based human
rights group Amnesty International warned after the vote that thousands of
Iraqi detainees in US military prisons could face torture or execution at the
hands of their own government. The pact would meanwhile
forbid US troops from making any further arrests without Iraqi authorisation. Copyright © 2008 AFP. All
rights reserved. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iQ2Ze6G3cCIH6YTtPK5rY0WBnRRQ |