The Atlantic: U.S. Troops Are Leaving Because Iraq Doesn't Want Them There

[Kurovski]

President Obama's speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren't being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They're leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House -- anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq's continuing political and security challenges -- publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension. As recently as last week, the White House was trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000-3,000 troops to stay beyond the end of the year.

Those efforts had never really gone anywhere; One senior U.S. military official told National Journal last weekend that they were stuck at "first base" because of Iraqi reluctance to hold substantive talks.

More...


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/us-troops-are-leaving-because-iraq-doesnt-want-them-there/247174/

[MNBrewer]

1. Some people (hint: Obama administration) wanted them to stay longer

Fact.

[Kurovski]

3. Yes, and also in the article: Republicans did push to keep many thousands more

than the 3,000 who will remain.

[Kurovski]

15. Edit: "...than the 3,000 Obama pushed for" (nt)

[NYC_SKP]

2. An attempt to diminish Obama's role in bringing this tragedy to an end. Why, people are even saying

that if Obama had his way, we'd be there longer.

Crazy.

This was Bush's mess, Obama has been taking out the trash and it just makes people crazy.

:patriot:

[Kurovski]

4. An attempt to bring reality into our national discourse.

Nothing more, nothing less. I remember the deal with Iraq in 2008. It's a fact. Also a fact is that all our presidents are heavily influenced by the Pentagon. We should be glad that the president there now will at least oppose them to some degree.

I see people are getting emotional over this. It's not what they think it is.

[FredStembottom]

6. Just the facts.

I live an entirely reality-based life. Such info as this is welcome to me.
I want to fix what's actually wrong with this country - and to do that, One needs to know what's actually wrong.l

[TwilightGardener]

7. Obama: 100% blame, 0% credit, no matter what. Gotcha.

[Kurovski]

13. No, you don't "got it".

What you "do got" is a shitty, fucked up little framing game that right-wingers used to love to play, a game they like to play because they ain't so good at the whole "facts" thing.

[TwilightGardener]

18. Not really. The facts are that Iraq is over, and I thank President Obama, despite

whatever was being negotiated. Because if Obama had insisted on keeping a sizeable force of troops there without immunity and against the wishes of the Iraqi people, he'd get 100% of the blame.

[Kurovski]

19. Your assumptions about me, attempting to frame me as to my intentions.

Really. You appear here to be playing politics and perceptions within a frame of what is generally agreed upon to be a "broken system"

While others wish to remain as unemotional as possible, not play this as if we were teams in a game, and gather facts as much as possible.

Edit: typo

[msongs]

5. Iraq has every right to not want our troops. Any reason to leave works for me nt

[appleannie1]

8. The Obama Administration insisted on immunity for US troops from Iraq courts and Iraq refused to

agree. Basically what the Obama Administration said is if any of our troops do something wrong, WE will handle the punishment. Had any troops remained without the immunity, they could have been either locked up in Iraq for life or even executed and the US could do nothing about it. There is NO dishonor in that. I guess McCain would have said "If one of our troops breaks an Iraqi law, they should pay the consequences in Iraq"

[FarCenter]

12. Japan and other countries should follow Iraq's lead

Particularly with respect to Okinawa.

[Lint Head]

9. Do we want soldiers from other countries occupying us?

[iamtechus]

10. The iraqi people never wanted us there

The iraqi gov would no longer extend any immunity protections to our people (an agreement with bush is expiring).

All those US troops died fighting an insurgency. Look up the meaning of insurgency.

What does it take to quash your gullibility? All of those troops that the repubs praise so highly died for Bush, Cheney and Oil.

[tridim]

11. Neither do thinking democrats.

The only people that want them there are Republicans.

[pampango]

30. Good point. And a republican president (think McCain) may not have cared what Iraq wanted.

Through force or manipulation a repub president could have refused to leave Iraq.

One good aspect of this is the invading army is leaving (much delayed but still leaving) when the government of the invaded country tells it to. (I'm not sure how often in history that has happened.) I hope this act helps the government of Iraq to be seen by Iraqis as more legitimate and not merely as a puppet of the invader.

[tularetom]

14. Obama should just take credit for getting them out

And keep his mouth shut about the real reason they are leaving.

Nobody cares WHY they're leaving, most people are just happy they are.

And Obama should keep reminding the voters that he ended the Iraq war, got Osama bin Laden, and helped overthrow a shitload of middle eastern dictators like Kadaffy, Mubarak, etc.

Obama - cleaning up after bush, one clusterfuck at a time.

[hulka38]

16. The administration would like to continue the occupation.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Kinda like taking credit for being evicted for being a lousy tenant.

[Imagevision]

20. Wrong! US. troops are moving out of Iraq because Obama wants them out, end of story

[Kurovski]

21. There was an agreement with Iraq set in 2008. The reality is a wee bit different than what you state

Holy flurking schnit! Was the John Birch Society correct? Was flouride a big mistake? What has happened to people's brains?

[bigtree]

32. I don't know where you were when it was 'agreed to', but the SOFA is full of loopholes

. . . that Bush intended for the next (republican) president to exploit to keep our forces bogged down there. This President ignored several incidents and setbacks in the Maliki regime and pushed forward, anyway, with the withdrawal. The notion that Iraq had the power to deny our troops their occupation is laughable, considering all of the years the U.S. ignored their wishes. All the U.S. had to do is to tell their puppet Maliki they're staying longer and that would take care of the SOFA.


from Geopoliticalmonitor: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/loopholes-in-us-iraq-security-pact-1527

A reinterpretation of the recently signed U.S.-Iraq security pact leaves loopholes in the agreement undermining the very concessions originally negotiated. U.S. troops will no longer be compelled to vacate Iraqi cities as called for by the Status-of-Forces Agreement (SOFA). Exposing the deal’s loopholes threatens a rejection by the Iraqi public via the proposed July 2009 national referendum.

Analysis

Though the Iraqi parliament debated and eventually passed the SOFA with the U.S. that would remove U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009, it turns out that the Bush and al-Maliki regimes have reinterpreted the provisions of the agreement to permit U.S. soldiers to remain in active combat roles in Iraqi cities indefinitely.

After months of intense negotiations, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki put his own political life, and that of his party’s, on the line by submitting a security pact that would permit the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq commencing with the end of the UN mandate, scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

Yesterday, however, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, admitted that yet-to-be-negotiated U.S. troops would remain in Iraqi cities past the mid-2009 deadline imposed by the security pact as part of so-called “transition teams”, manning numerous security outposts closely coordinated with Iraqi soldiers. The same day, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell also revealed another loophole: U.S. troops will continue to remain in active combat roles at the “invitation of the Iraqi Parliament”. Such an ‘invitation’ would not require a passage of law, but merely the ‘request’ of pro-U.S. Prime Minister al-Maliki.

Both revelations followed on the heels of Friday’s expose in Washington when top Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, conceded that U.S. troops would be in Iraq for another 10 years.


from WIKI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93Iraq_Status_of_Forces_Agreement

To protest an agreement they saw as prolonging a "humiliating" occupation, tens of thousands of Iraqis burned an effigy of George W. Bush in a central Baghdad square where U.S. troops five years previously staged a tearing down of a statue of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi parliament was the scene of many protests before and during the vote.

After the deal passed, over 9,000 Iraqis gathered to protest in Baghdad's eastern suburb of Sadr City. Protesters burned a U.S. flag and held banners reading: "No, no to the agreement". "We condemn the agreement and we reject it, just as we condemn all injustice", Sheikh Hassan al-Husseini told worshippers right after the vote at the weekly Friday prayers in Baghdad. Iraqi theologian, political, and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr called for three days of peaceful protests and mourning after the passing of the agreement. Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani's expressed concerns with the ratified version of the pact and noted that the government of Iraq has no authority to control the transfer of occupier forces into and out of Iraq, no control of shipments, and that the pact grants the occupiers immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. He said that Iraqi rule in the country is not complete while the occupiers are present, but that ultimately the Iraqi people would judge the pact in a referendum. Sistani considers parts of the agreement "a mystery" and said that the pact provides "no guarantee" that Iraq would regain sovereignty.

On December 3, 2008, about 2,000 Syrian-based Iraqi refugees staged a protest against the Iraq-US military pact saying that the agreement would place Iraq under US domination. "We denounce the security agreement, a shameful and dishonorable agreement of American occupation", read one banner outside a shop in the mostly Shiite neighborhood where the protest occurred. The Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of Sunni religious leaders in Iraq, accused the Sunni Accordance Front, a party which supported the pact, of "selling Iraq" and also denounced the deal as "legitimising the occupation".

Some other Iraqis expressed skeptical optimism that the U.S. would completely end its occupation in three years.

[slipslidingaway]

24. Iraq's Parliament Approves Security Agreement With United States - November 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/27/AR2008112700536.html

"By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 28, 2008

BAGHDAD, Nov. 27 -- The Iraqi parliament on Thursday approved a security pact that requires the U.S. military to end its presence in Iraq in 2011, eight years after a U.S.-led invasion brought about the fall of Saddam Hussein..."


Panetta: Iraq to negotiate U.S. presence beyond 2011 - August 2011

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/08/panetta-iraq-agrees-us-troops-can-stay-beyond-2011/1

"Update at 5:25 p.m. ET: Following Pentagon reaction to initial reports that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Iraq had agreed that non-combat U.S. troops could stay beyond 2011, Stars and Stripes has clarified its initial story to say that Iraq has agreed to negotiate an extended U.S. presence. His comment came in a roundtable interview conducted earlier today.

"The Secretary was asked if there had been progress in our discussions with the Iraqi government since his visit six weeks ago. He made clear that the Iraqis have said yes to discussions about the strategic relationship beyond 2011, and what that relationship might look like," said Pentagon spokesman George Little..."

[Kurovski]

25. Your Jon Stewart avatar is my only clue that you are possibly being ironic here.

But that's not much to go on these days. :)

[slipslidingaway]

22. State Department readies Iraq operation, its biggest since Marshall Plan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-readies-iraq-operation-its-biggest-since-marshall-plan/2011/10/05/gIQAzRruTL_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

"Attention in Washington and Baghdad has centered on the number of U.S. troops that could remain in Iraq. But those forces will be dwarfed by an estimated 16,000 civilians under the American ambassador — the size of an Army division.

...The list of responsibilities the State Department will pick up from the military is daunting. It will have to provide security for the roughly 1,750 traditional embassy personnel — diplomats, aid workers, Treasury employees and so on — in a country rocked by daily bombings and assassinations.

To do so, the department is contracting about 5,000 security personnel. They will protect the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad plus two consulates, a pair of support sites at Iraqi airports and three police-training facilities.

The department will also operate its own air service — the 46-aircraft Embassy Air Iraq — and its own hospitals, functions the U.S. military has been performing. About 4,600 contractors, mostly non-American, will provide cooking, cleaning, medical care and other services. Rounding out the civilian presence will be about 4,600 people scattered over 10 or 11 sites, where Iraqis will be instructed on how to use U.S. military equipment their country has purchased..."

[woo me with science]

23. K&R nt

[JVS]

26. He's lucky he has the Iraqi government to hold his feet to the fire.

[ProSense]

27. Iraq still seeking U.S. trainers: PM Maliki

Iraq still seeking U.S. trainers: PM Maliki

MSNBC:

<...>

"When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible," al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad. "The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started."

<...>

Al-Maliki told reporters he still wants American help in training Iraqi forces to use billions of dollars worth of military equipment that Baghdad is buying from the United States. He did not say if the prospective U.S. trainers would be active-duty troops, and said any immunity deals for them would have to be worked out in the future.

<...>

Michael O'Hanlon, an expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington said continued violence in Iraq was always a threat, whether or not U.S. troops remain.

"But it's true that their frequency may increase absent U.S. help in areas of intelligence and special operations," said O'Hanlon, who was among a group of Bush administration officials and academics who called on Obama to keep a robust U.S. force in Iraq. "In addition, I do fear the residual risk of civil war goes up with this decision, as the north in particular will become more fraught."

The neocons and those who want U.S. troops to remain in Iraq are pushing the meme that this was a sudden decision by Obama. They are all upset that the war is ending, and Al-Maliki will say anything. In fact, whatever he says will go through the spin mill.

The troops are leaving, and no matter how much the media and others try to create the ridiculous impression that a massive departure of troops, which has been ongoing, was decided based on a call on Friday, the Iraq war is ending.

[slipslidingaway]

28. Who said this was a sudden a decision by Obama? The date was set in 2008 ...

unless another agreement was reached, this date has been talked about for months and known about for years. No other agreement was reached to leave troops in Iraq past the deadline set in 2008.


Iraq's Parliament Approves Security Agreement With United States

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/27/AR2008112700536.html

November 28, 2008

The Iraqi parliament on Thursday approved a security pact that requires the U.S. military to end its presence in Iraq in 2011, eight years after a U.S.-led invasion brought about the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"It's a historic day for the great Iraqi people," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in a nationally televised address. "It represents the first step on the road to regain national sovereignty."

Just over half of the parliament members voted to approve the agreement, which will give the United States a legal basis to maintain its forces in Iraq but requires American commanders to work more closely with Iraqi authorities than they have in the past. A United Nations mandate authorizing the U.S. presence expires Dec. 31.

The pact also restricts the powers of the U.S. military to search homes, detain Iraqi citizens and conduct military operations, and gives Iraqi officials oversight over American forces. U.S. troops could be prosecuted under Iraqi laws for serious crimes committed when off duty and off their bases, although the United States retains the power to determine whether a service member was off duty. Still, the changes represent a dramatic shift for a nation where most citizens felt humiliation at having American troops on their soil.

[Kurovski]

29. I sure do love that photoshopped picture.

I must admit. :)

[bigtree]

31. that never stopped Bush

Maliki had said for years that he thought Iraq could go it alone. Bush never once respected that. In fact, the SOFA was just a slick way to make it appear to Iraqis (and the voters here at home) like he was leaving, but it had so many loopholes that even this administration had considered leaving a sizable 'residual force' beyond the deadline agreed to. This president respected their sovereignty and left. Anyone who thinks Maliki had the power to make us leave hasn't been paying attention.

[Kurovski]

33. The deal was made during Bush's occupation of the White House.

Iraq found a way.