Iraq’s national security adviser on Sunday rejected a report that Washington and Baghdad have abandoned efforts to conclude a deal on the status of US troops in Iraq before the end of the presidency of George W. Bush.
Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said a front-page Washington Post story on Sunday was “missing the point” on the protracted negotiations and that the two sides were still aiming to achieve a pact by the end of the month as the US and Iraq had publicly hoped.
The Post reported that in place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had aimed to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a “bridge” document that would allow basic US military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a UN mandate at the end of the year, the report said.
“I don’t think this is true, to be quite honest,” Rubaie told CNN.
“Over the last few months or weeks ... we were trying to secure what is the best approach ... and I think we are very clear now what we want to do,” Rubaie said.
“We are trying very hard to get to this [July] timeline, and I believe that there is still hope,” he said, adding that the two sides were “making some good progress.”
The failure of months of negotiations is being blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept US terms and the complexity of the task, the daily noted.
Although Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, “we are talking about dates,” acknowledged one US official close to the negotiations, the Post said.
Iraqi political leaders “are all telling us the same thing. ... Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever,” the official was quoted as saying.
Unlike the status-of-forces agreements with South Korea and Japan, where large numbers of US troops have been based for decades, the document now under discussion with Iraq is likely to cover only 2009, the report said.
Negotiators expect it to include a “time horizon,” with specific goals for US troop withdrawal from Baghdad and other cities, the Post said.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS