Pact, Approved in Iraq, Sets Time for U.S. Pullout
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s cabinet on Sunday overwhelmingly approved a proposed security agreement that calls for a full withdrawal of American forces from the country by the end of 2011. The cabinet’s decision brings a final date for the departure of American troops a significant step closer after more than five and a half years of war.
The proposed pact must still be approved by Iraq’s Parliament, in a vote scheduled to take place in a week. But leaders of some of the largest parliamentary blocs expressed confidence that with the backing of most Shiites and Kurds they had enough support to ensure its approval.
Twenty-seven of the 28 cabinet ministers who were present at the two-and-a-half-hour session voted in favor of the pact. Nine ministers were absent. The nearly unanimous vote was a victory for the dominant Shiite party and its Kurdish partners. Widespread Sunni opposition could doom the proposed pact even if it has the votes to pass, as it would call into question whether there was a true national consensus, which Shiite leaders consider essential.
The proposed agreement, which took nearly a year to negotiate with the United States, not only sets a date for American troop withdrawal, but puts new restrictions on American combat operations in Iraq starting Jan. 1 and requires an American military pullback from urban areas by June 30. Those hard dates reflect a significant concession by the departing Bush administration, which had been publicly averse to timetables.
Iraq also obtained a significant degree of jurisdiction in some cases over serious crimes committed by Americans who are off duty and not on bases.
In Washington, the White House welcomed the vote as “an important and positive step” and attributed the agreement itself to security improvements in the past year.
Throughout the negotiations, the Shiite parties and the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, under pressure from forces both within and outside the country, had been trying to strike a balance in forging a viable agreement with the Americans that would guarantee Iraq’s security and that would still stand firm against what many, including neighboring Iran, consider a hostile force that has occupied Iraq since the spring 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
“This vote shows that the Iraqis have figured out how to stand up for themselves, to Iran and to the U.S.,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a specialist on Iraq at the Brookings Institution. “They will have stared in the face at the various options and concluded that none are ideal, but the best for their security is an amount of ongoing but finite American cooperation, while also indicating their strong desire to run their own country on their own as soon as possible.”
American officials said the accord was the result of tough bargaining by the Iraqis. Speaking about the negotiations a few days before the cabinet vote, Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador, said of the 100 requests for changes sought by the Iraqi side in recent weeks: “Some were substantive, some were linguistic, some were stylistic. We looked at it all; we were as forthcoming as we could possibly be in responding.” Some Iraqi Shiite politicians said a significant factor in the cabinet decision was the approval of the pact by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, who from the outset had laid down three conditions: full Iraqi sovereignty, transparency and majority support for the pact.
Sheik Dhia al-Din al-Fayyadh, a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, one of the largest Shiite parties, said the ayatollah did not consent until a delegation of Shiite leaders visited him on Saturday to assure him that those conditions were met. “We told him that we had got as close as we could possibly get,” Mr. Fayyadh said. “We didn’t get everything, but almost.”
Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said the agreement allowed for the possibility that American forces could withdraw even earlier if Iraqi forces were in a position to take over security responsibilities earlier. He also said either side had the right to cancel the agreement with one year’s notice.
Several political analysts suggested that Iranian opposition to the pact had softened because of the American presidential election victory of Senator Barack Obama. He has suggested a more diplomatic approach to Tehran and has described a withdrawal timetable from Iraq faster even than the one laid out in the security agreement, though recently he has qualified that stance.
“If George Bush’s presidency were going to continue on through 2012, I think people would be a lot more concerned,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a Middle East analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Having this administration really lightens the blow for the Iranians.”
A section of the agreement that Iraqi officials said barred the United States from launching attacks on neighboring countries from Iraq also may have diminished Iranian resistance.
“We sent messages to neighboring countries to say, ‘This is in our interest,’ ” said Mr. Fayyadh, the Shiite lawmaker. “Specifically we spoke to the Iranians and gave them guarantees that ‘no one will use our country to attack you.’ ” There was no immediate reaction from Iran to the vote.
In many ways, the vote can be seen as a calculated judgment by the Iraqi leaders as to who, for now, is best positioned to guarantee their political survival. It was the United States, after all, that helped usher many of the current Iraqi leaders into power and, given the improved but still fragile security situation in the country, many still see a need for an American military presence.
The presence of American troops in Iraq is governed by a United Nations resolution that expires Dec. 31. If the pact is not approved and if the Security Council were to balk at extending it, the Americans say their forces in Iraq would have to cease operations. As if to underscore the risks of no agreement, violence spiked in the two weeks leading up to the cabinet vote; on Sunday the heightened attacks included a car bombing that killed 10 in Diyala Province.
It remains unclear how hardened opponents of the agreement might respond, particularly followers of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. After the cabinet vote, Sadrist politicians, reiterating their opposition to the accord, claimed that as a procedural matter, parliamentary approval would require a two-thirds majority. Supporters say a simple majority will suffice.
In a statement released Sunday night, Mr. Sadr sought once again to position himself as a nationalist opponent of the American-led forces. “I call on the Iraqi Parliament again to refuse this pact without hesitation because it is a deal to sell Iraq and its people,” said Mr. Sadr, who in a statement at Friday Prayer last week also called for armed resistance against the Americans.
Many Sunnis have opposed the pact for the opposite reason: they worry that without the Americans, they could be at the mercy of Iraq’s majority Shiite population and, behind it, the Iranians.
But Tawafiq, the largest Sunni bloc in Parliament, appears to be divided. A little more than a fourth of its members have said they will vote for the agreement, while leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Tawafiq’s largest member party, said they would not approve any agreement without a national referendum, an unlikely development.
The sole minister to vote against the pact on Sunday was a Sunni, and several of the nine ministers who were not present for the vote are Sunni. “The Sunnis are probably hoping for a better deal on other things,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “Possibly they’ve concluded that this was going to pass anyway so they’d rather take this anti-American stance for their future political benefit.”
Several politicians said an obstacle to Parliament’s approval would be its failure to achieve a quorum, a chronic failing — especially if lawmakers immediately left for Saudi Arabia on the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Parliament quickly sought to thwart that possibility by banning members from traveling abroad.
On Sunday, Shiite legislators could barely conceal their delight in the halls of the Parliament building, which still bears the marks of Mr. Hussein’s Baathist government in the form of mosaics depicting American jet bombers flying over defiant Iraqi soldiers. In a sign of their newfound boldness with the Americans, they referred to the pact as the “withdrawal agreement.”
Hadi al-Ameri, a Shiite lawmaker who leads the Badr Organization, the onetime paramilitary wing of the Supreme Council, said Shiites would seek widespread consensus in Parliament.
He also cautioned that they expected a possibly violent reaction from rejectionists, “which would have happened if we signed it, and if we didn’t sign it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment