The Bush administration has launched a top-level lobbying campaign to persuade skeptical US lawmakers and disapproving Iraqi politicians to support a security agreement governing the continued presence of US troops in Iraq.
Although congressional approval is not legally required, US lawmakers’ support is considered crucial for an agreement to go forward. In Iraq, where the deal must pass through several complex layers of approval, the going is considered even tougher.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, are reaching out to key members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Rice also is pressing senior Iraqi leaders to accept the deal.
The agreement includes a timeline for US withdrawal by 2012 and a crucial but unpopular and potentially controversial compromise that gives Iraq limited ability to try US contractors or soldiers for major crimes committed off-duty and off-base, officials said on Thursday.
Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama and Republican rival Senator John McCain, both on Senate committees that deal with the issue, were among those being briefed on the proposal by Rice. Officials could not say on Thursday if she had talked to them yet.
Neither candidate has signaled a position on the draft in campaign appearances. In their debate on Wednesday, McCain made only a fleeting reference to it: “We’re now about to have an agreement for status of forces in Iraq coming up,” he said, without further comment.
Obama spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Obama and his running mate, Senator Joe Biden, “had productive conversations” with Rice.
“They look forward to reviewing the text of the draft agreement,” she said.
Obama, in a statement he and other senators released during the summer after a trip to Iraq, said they had discussed with Iraqi leaders “the need to give our troops immunity from Iraqi prosecution so long as they are in Iraq.”
Rice on Wednesday called senior Iraqi leaders, pressing them to accept the agreement that contains elements that many in Baghdad see as a violation of their country’s sovereignty, officials said.
“The Iraqis are considering the text, we are talking to the Iraqis,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
He said Rice had spoken to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite like al-Maliki and a top member of the Supreme Council. Rice is working to keep the process moving, he said.
The administration had hoped to conclude the agreement by the end of July, to leave plenty of time to sell it before the current UN mandate for the US-led international force in Iraq expires on Dec. 31. Now it has less than three months to go before that legal cover for US forces disappears.
The UN mandate could be extended, but that could be a difficult process, and is a route neither the Iraqis nor the US relish pursuing.
Without either a deal or an extension, the worst-case scenario is that US troops in Iraq would have to be confined to their barracks.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS