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| Iraq |
| Time for US to leave Iraq? Not so fast, say analysts |
| 2008-07-13 |
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush long has vowed that the United States would leave Iraq if asked by Baghdad's leadership, but now that the request has been made, Bush is in no hurry to exit, analysts say. Iraqi leaders have pressed for a withdrawal timetable as part of negotiations over the US military role beyond December 31, when the UN mandate which provides the legal basis for a foreign troop presence in Iraq expires. The request was made first by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who last Monday said he was seeking a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops as part of a security agreement, which both sides were striving to conclude by July. National security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie followed on Tuesday by asserting Iraq would reject any security pact if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops. For Bush -- who said on May 24, 2007: "We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. ... If they were to say 'leave,' we would leave" -- it would appear Iraq's request for a US departure date has been made loud and clear. But the White House has remained opposed to any set date for US pullout on the basis it could hand insurgents a victory, resisting attempts by foes in Congress to impose a withdrawal date. The White House reacted to Maliki's comments by saying it was not negotiating a "hard date" for a US withdrawal from Iraq but it did not rule out discussions on "time-frames" with Baghdad. Eventually, the administration will have "basically no choice" but to exit, according to Iraq expert Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Iraq is a sovereign nation. The United States has repeated that point constantly. This is a government in Iraq that makes its own choices, and the US will have basically no choice," he said. However, he warned that Iraq's leaders may not be as steadfast as they appear in calling for a withdrawal date. "We ought to be very careful not to read too much into a report or an agreement nobody has seen, with conditions which may be surprisingly vague," Cordesman said. A departure of combat troops, he stressed, could still leave behind large numbers of advisors to help in the fight against Al-Qaeda. The Bush administration is playing on this uncertainty by publicly assuring that Iraq's call for a withdrawal date indicates an improvement of the situation, while sticking by its opposition to any fixed pullout schedule, experts say. The White House has indicated it is open to what spokeswoman Dana Perino has called "aspirational time frames," but has repeated that any decisions must be based on conditions on the ground. In a further sign that the two sides are far from a deal, a Washington Post report Sunday suggested the negotiations to conclude a so-called Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Iraq by the time Bush leaves office have been abandoned, effectively leaving talks over the US military presence in Iraq to the next US administration. The two governments were now working on a "bridge" document that would allow basic US military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a United Nations mandate at the end of the year, the Post reported, citing unnamed senior US officials. Behind the scenes, US officials acknowledge that Iraqi leaders are ramping up calls for control of their own affairs because Iraqi sovereignty is a key campaign issue ahead of provincial polls in October. The radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has likened any long-term US military presence to "eternal slavery." Bush, who has often said he envisions a prolonged military presence in Iraq citing the South Korean situation as an example, was not being sincere when he said the United States would leave if asked, according to analyst Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense to president Ronald Reagan. "He said it but he didn't mean it, he never thought they would ask for it," Korb said, adding it is unlikely, in his view, that anything more than a "target date" could be proposed before Bush leaves office in January 2009. "Basically what Bush is going to do and Maliki is going to do is kick the can down the road to see who gets elected," Korb said. |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |
| #1 "now that the request has been made" "Iraqi leaders have pressed for a withdrawal timetable" NO THEY HAVE NOT! The press is perpetuating a lie because it fits with their world view, and provides Barak Hussein Obama political cover for his cut-n-run position. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-13 16:53 |