Say Anything Blog

Iraq minister: US troops will pull out in three years under deal

American soldiers will withdraw from cities across Iraq next summer and all US combat troops will leave the country within three years, provided the violence remains low, under the terms of a draft agreement with the Iraqi Government.

In one of the most detailed insights yet into the content of the deal, Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, has also told The Times that the US military would be barred from unilaterally mounting attacks inside Iraq from next year.

In addition, the power of arrest for US soldiers would be curbed by the need to hand over any detainee to a new, US-Iraqi committee. Troops would require the green light from this joint command before conducting any operation.

The Pentagon refused to comment last night on the proposals laid out in the draft agreement between Baghdad and Washington that covers the status of US forces beyond 2008. Britain will strike its own deal with Iraq but Gordon Brown hopes to withdraw most British troops from Iraq by next summer, reducing the number of soldiers from 4,10 to “a few hundred” by then.

This bothers me a bit:
1. I like getting out by next summer, we should call it a victory now, before Buch leaves office; but . . .
2. The U.S. cannot launch operations unilaterally, which many mean even if to defend their own positions. That leaves them too vulnerable.
3. They’ll have no arrest authority, only to detain suspects for an Iraqi committee. So, it can mean that no matter how guilty a person is, a Shiite committee member can release terrorists if they are Shiites to go back and kill Americans.

“The idea is really to keep these forces outside the main cities, the population centres. It doesn’t mean that they could not enter or come through,” the Foreign Minister said. The US Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on the content of the framework accord, while describing the continuing talks as “constructive”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4526313.ece

I feel a damn ingrate Iraqi leadership is operating here, I could be reading it wrong, but it bothers me.