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Shame on us. With all the news focused entirely on the Elections and the economic crisis, we’ve completely lost sight on something very real, and potentially very dangerous, in the Middle East. The UN pact that is currently keeping U.S. and other allied troops in Iraq is set to expire, and the negotiations between the U.S. and the Iraqi government are hitting a few snags as to how we will keep troops there beyond the end of 2008.
There is a scheduled withdrawl (hear that Republicans? that dangerous magic word, withdrawl… ooooh… doesn’t that mean defeat? I mean, a scheduled withdrawl sounds an awful lot like a timetable, which we’ve been warned about so much and… ok, I’ll stop now) for U.S. troops in 2011 seems to be the goal that the Iraqis want to hold us to, but the current draft of the security pact leaves an opening to keep U.S. troops there longer if it’s deemed necessary (doesn’t exactly say who it would be deemed necessary by) and members of the Iraqi Parliament are off-put by this lack of finality in the agreement. They want a solid date of withdrawl and want us to stick to it.
Of course, our military leaders have other ideas and believe that by holding up the signing of this pact, the Iraqis are setting themselves up for dangerous times.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen has gone so far as to say that the Iraqi government and their military and police forces would not be able to keep control of the country should they continue holding up the signing of the pact. Iraqi spokemen have come out to challenge that statement and say that Iraq will not be bullied by the U.S. into allowing them to stay.
The current draft says that U.S. troops will begin moving out of Iraqi towns by June of 2009 as long as situation permits, with all forces removed by 2011. The big gripe the leaders of Iraq have is the “situation permitting” part, which they feel is too open ended, and could be used by the U.S. to stay longer than the Iraqis would like us to.
The security pact has to be signed by Dec 31st of this year, if it is not, all non-Iraqi forces will have to cease all operations within the borders, until a new agreement is made. Right now it’s playing like a game of chicken and neither side looks ready to swerve…
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