Iraq’s Cabinet defied fiery opposition from Shiite hardliners yesterday to approve a wide-ranging military pact that includes a timetable for the withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011.
Baghdad and Washington have been scrambling for months to reach an agreement that would govern the status of more than 150,000 US soldiers stationed in some 400 bases across the country after their UN mandate expires on Dec. 31.
The Cabinet approved the agreement after a two-and-a-half hour meeting, with 27 ministers out of 38 voting for it, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
“There was a positive position taken on the part of the larger blocs and all the most important blocs,” Dabbagh told reporters after the vote.
“They all expressed a positive position because they consider it the best [agreement] possible, because it will manage and end the military presence and guarantee the complete withdrawal of the troops,” he said.
The measure will now need to be approved by a majority of parliament through a process that will take at least a week.
It would then be ratified by Iraq’s presidential council before Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would sign the deal with US President George W. Bush.
Iraq’s lead negotiator, Muwafaq al-Rubaie, said on Friday he believed the draft agreement was a “very good text” and expected it to be approved by parliament as well.
The White House, too, was upbeat on Friday, describing the text of the accord as a “good agreement” that suits both countries.
It took nearly 11 months of tense and detailed negotiations before both Baghdad and Washington were comfortable with the Status of Forces Agreement pact on the future of US forces in Iraq.
“At some stages we went through we said well, this couldn’t be done. It is very difficult, it is literally impossible to do. Other times we said well, okay, it’s better now, we have progressed,” Rubaie said.
The draft agreement includes 31 articles and calls for US troops to pull out of Iraqi cities by next June and from the entire country by the end of 2011.
But the pact has drawn fire from hardline nationalists, especially the anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters have called for mass demonstrations to oppose any agreement with the US “occupier.”
Iraq has seen dramatic improvements in security over the past year as US and Iraqi forces have allied with local tribal militias to flush insurgents and militias out of vast swathes of the country that were once ungovernable.
The reduction in violence has also been partly attributed to an order by Sadr at the end of August last year to his thousands-strong Mehdi Army militia to observe a ceasefire.
But on Friday Sadr announced the creation of a new militia — the Brigades of the Promised Day — to fight the Americans and demanded that “the occupier leaves our beloved Iraq without any bases and without any accord.”
The objections of the firebrand cleric, who is believed to be living in Iran, will have little impact on the decision, given that his party only holds 28 seats in Iraq’s 275-seat parliament.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS