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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation |
Galbraith: US-Iraq Security Agreement Is ‘Stunning and Humiliating’ for Bush
Iraqi leaders motivated by pro-Shiite and pro-Iranian agendas says Galbraith
WASHINGTON - November 26 - Peter Galbraith, a top Iraq expert and former ambassador to Croatia, issued a statement today on the status of forces agreement recently signed by the United States and Iraq.
Galbraith serves as senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He is available for comment today (Wednesday, November 26) from Cambridge, MA.
“The agreement represents a stunning and humiliating reversal of course by the Bush administration, which had vehemently opposed any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq,” said Galbraith.
Iraqi and American negotiators have been working on the security agreement for over a year. The Iraqi parliament is expected to vote on the pact on Wednesday. To pass, the agreement needs to get 138 votes out of 275 Iraqi lawmakers and also must be ratified by the Iraqi presidential council.
“For the last two years, President Bush has pretended that Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is a democrat and an American ally. In fact, Maliki is a sectarian Shiite politician who heads a government dominated by pro-Iranian religious parties,” remarked Galbraith. “The U.S. presence now no longer serves the interests of Iraq’s ruling Shiite religious parties or their Iranian allies, so we are now being asked to leave.”
The agreement mandates that “all U.S. combat forces” withdraw from urban areas in Iraq by June 30, 2009, and that “all U.S. forces” withdraw from the country by December 31, 2011. The agreement upholds Iraq’s “sovereign right” to demand the departure of U.S. forces anytime and recognizes the United States’ “sovereign right” to remove its forces earlier than the end of 2011.
For more information about the agreement, see the in depth analysis online.
Galbraith serves as senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He is available for comment today (Wednesday, November 26) from Cambridge, MA.
“The agreement represents a stunning and humiliating reversal of course by the Bush administration, which had vehemently opposed any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq,” said Galbraith.
Iraqi and American negotiators have been working on the security agreement for over a year. The Iraqi parliament is expected to vote on the pact on Wednesday. To pass, the agreement needs to get 138 votes out of 275 Iraqi lawmakers and also must be ratified by the Iraqi presidential council.
“For the last two years, President Bush has pretended that Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is a democrat and an American ally. In fact, Maliki is a sectarian Shiite politician who heads a government dominated by pro-Iranian religious parties,” remarked Galbraith. “The U.S. presence now no longer serves the interests of Iraq’s ruling Shiite religious parties or their Iranian allies, so we are now being asked to leave.”
The agreement mandates that “all U.S. combat forces” withdraw from urban areas in Iraq by June 30, 2009, and that “all U.S. forces” withdraw from the country by December 31, 2011. The agreement upholds Iraq’s “sovereign right” to demand the departure of U.S. forces anytime and recognizes the United States’ “sovereign right” to remove its forces earlier than the end of 2011.
For more information about the agreement, see the in depth analysis online.
The agreement also bars permanent American bases in
Iraq, prohibits the
United
States from using Iraqi territory to launch attacks
against other nations, and bars any residual
U.S.
forces in
Iraq
beyond the end of 2011.
Galbraith concluded: “While U.S. withdrawal is made easier by the fact that both the Iraqi government and the new U.S. administration want American troops out, the confluence of events leading to the agreement underscores the folly of President Bush’s lost Iraq war.”
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Posted in Iraq
3 Comments so far
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I recall one of the saddest statements I heard a vet make was, " upon arriving in country, we named our camps Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP etc." On a bus I met a soldier's brother who stated he would be returning to Iraq after his burns healed. They were buying a home in Texas after his brother's next deployment. At the soup kitchen I work in, an Iraq vet returned home to a foreclosure, and the renters blamed him- then sold all his appliances. He ended up in jail after an altercation, and of course is homeless now. The three Vietnam era vets living in my building are all cancer victims, suffering from untreated PTSD. During nurses training in 1979, we all spent weeks at the VA. When the man I work with said he thought it was good the military was taking advantage of the poor economy for recruiting, I reminded him of what I witnessed at the VA so many years ago, and what I see in the men victimized by Vietnam. He just didn't get it, or maybe just didn't want to.
George Wanker Bush doesn't care about Iraq, never did. He wanted to be U.S. Grant, Black Jack Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Wayne, Dirty Harry. All along he was merely Jack D. Ripper who guzzled whiskey instead of rainwater. So Iraq didn't work out. Now The Wanker will concentrate on making money by giving inane chest thumping speeches to audiences full of Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter wanna-bees. Every dollar he scams will make him think he is The Truly Great One his sick, mediocre mind tells him he is. The earth will revolve one more time and the absurdity will go on.
The unilateral nature of occupation is being dismantled. In its place is slowly evolving precedent for plurality which existed prior to US invasion. Plurality is perhaps the single greatest element slowly arising like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes.
Plurality is the only sustainable dynamic.