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.
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