On
November 17, 2008, when Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and U.S.
ambassador Ryan Crocker signed an agreement for the withdrawal of U.S.
troops from Iraq, citizens from both countries applauded. While many
were disappointed about the lengthy timeline for the withdrawal of the
troops, it appeared that a roadmap was set to end the war and
occupation. However, the first step — withdrawing U.S. troops from
Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 — is full of loopholes, and tens of
thousands of U.S. soldiers will remain in the cities after the
"deadline" passes.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said a US raid on Sunday in which a policeman and a woman were shot dead was a "breach" of a landmark security pact with Washington.
"The prime minister condemns the killings which are in breach of the (US-Iraqi) security pact," Maliki said in a statement carried by Iraqi state TV. The premier "wants those responsible to be put on trial," it added.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has given military commanders a free hand to determine the size and composition of a residual force in Iraq up to 50,000 troops, apparently including the option of leaving one or more combat brigades or bringing them from the United States, after the August 2010 deadline for the ostensible withdrawal of all combat brigades now in Iraq.
WASHINGTON - It is one of the most troublesome questions right now at the Pentagon, and it has started a semantic dance: What is the definition of a combat soldier? More important, when will all American combat troops withdraw from the major cities of Iraq?
The short answers are that combat troops, defined by the military as those whose primary mission is to engage the enemy with lethal force, will have to be out of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, the deadline under a recently approved status-of-forces agreement between the United States and Iraq.
WASHINGTON - U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.
The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S.
NEW YORK - The virtually total impunity from prosecution accorded to private contractors in Iraq may be coming to an end.
Under the new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) approved by the Iraqi government last week, U.S. contractors will be subject to Iraqi law for the first time. Moreover, some observers believe that Iraq may be able to hold them legally accountable for offences allegedly committed even before the SOFA was approved.
BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber killed 12 people in an Iraqi mosque on Friday while thousands of followers of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in Baghdad after parliament passed a pact allowing U.S. troops to remain through 2011.
Some 9,000 people protested in Baghdad's Shi'ite slum of Sadr City after Friday prayers, burning a U.S. flag and holding banners reading "No, no to the agreement." About 2,500 people held a similar rally in the southern city of Basra.
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 domestic political
horse-trading leading up to the vote, the pact was approved by 149
members of the 198 who attended the session of the 275-member assembly.
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has adopted a much looser
interpretation than the Iraqi government of several key provisions of
the pending U.S.-Iraq security agreement, U.S. officials said Tuesday -
just hours before the Iraqi parliament was to hold its historic vote.
These include a provision that bans the launch of attacks on other
countries from Iraq, a requirement to notify the Iraqis in advance of
U.S. military operations and the question of Iraqi legal jurisdiction
over American troops and military contractors.
WASHINGTON - Private security contractors operating in Iraq could
face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had
immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday.
A new U.S.-Iraq security agreement doesn't specifically prevent Iraqi
officials from bringing criminal charges retroactively in cases such as
the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by contractors
protecting a State Department convoy, officials told security company
officials during meetings in Washington Thursday.
