US troops walk along a corridor separating detainees at Camp Bucca in Iraq. Photograph: David Furst/AFP/Getty Images
• Combat troops to quit most provinces next year
• U-turn by leading Shia cleric paves way for deal
guardian.co.uk,
Monday November 17 2008
The US and Iraq will formally commit to a pact that withdraws all American forces from the country within three years, and pulls all combat troops out of most provinces by mid-2009, the Iraqi cabinet announced yesterday. The deal for the first time prescribes a timeline for an American departure from Iraq, which the US president-elect, Barack Obama, had foreshadowed as top of his foreign policy agenda when he takes office on January 20.
In a development that caught coalition officials by surprise, Iraq's cabinet yesterday ended one year of protracted negotiations by agreeing to a series of US amendments to draft documents. All but one cabinet minister present at the meeting committed to the agreement.
On Saturday the leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani dropped his opposition to the deal, in a shift that some observers believe paved the way for a Shia bloc in the cabinet to vote in its favour.
"The cabinet has just approved a deal between Iraq and the United States for the withdrawal of American troops," said a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh.
The deal must now be ratified by the 275-seat Iraqi legislature, a process that most considered a formality.
A UN mandate for coalition troops to remain in Iraq expires on December 31. However, the agreement will provide a legal framework for their continued presence under Iraqi law.
The deal will also strengthen the powers of the Iraqi government, giving it legal jurisdiction over US troops and contractors who commit crimes off-base and off-duty. It will ban American troops from launching raids into neighbouring countries, like the operation carried out late last month by US special forces into Syria.
The agreement is being interpreted as a sign that the Iraqi government is gaining in confidence and competence. But concerns remain in Whitehall about the principle of British troops being subjected to an Iraqi judicial system potentially influenced by political considerations.
The bulk of the 4,100 British troops still based at Basra airport are expected to leave by the middle of next year. Most of these are not engaged in combat roles. However, a few hundred UK soldiers are assigned to accompany Iraqi troops in anti-insurgency operations near Basra. UK forces also supply logistics support.
Iraqi forces now have command in all but five of 18 provinces. Baghdad this year took the lead in a crackdown on Shia militias and last week also started to pay, from its own budget, a large group of former insurgents and anti al-Qaida figures, known as the Sons of Iraq. The group of up to 100,000 people had been paid $300 (about £200) each month by the US.
The US now has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and is still involved in combat operations in and around Baghdad, and in northern Iraq.
President George Bush had opposed setting a timetable for a troop withdrawal, saying combat forces would leave only when Iraq was stable enough for them to go. However, the US embassy in Baghdad yesterday hailed the decision as a "positive step".
Iran and the loyalist Iraqi Shia militia of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had demanded that all US troops should leave Iraq immediately. Response to the Iraqi cabinet agreement was mute in Tehran last night, while al-Sadr threatened to mobilise his powerful militia, which he stood down earlier this year. The cleric's stronghold in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Sadr City was last night surrounded by coalition and Iraqi troops ready to try to quickly suppress any revolt.
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