Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, the chairman of our sister organization just published an op-ed co-authored with former congressional Rep. Tom Andrews. With all the media attention that the Hillary as Secretary of State has been receiving, Tom and Gen. Gard take…
CLW supports U.S.-Iraq security agreement
This morning Council for a Livable World sent out a press release on the U.S.-Iraq status of forces agreement (known as a ‘SOFA’). Text is below.
Washington, D.C. — Council for a Livable World, a leading anti-Iraq war organization, announced its support today for the status of forces agreement recently signed by the United States and Iraq.
Iraqi and American negotiators have been working on the pact for over a year. The Iraqi parliament is expected to vote on the agreement on Wednesday. To pass, the agreement needs to get 138 votes out of 275 Iraqi lawmakers and also must be ratified by the Iraqi presidential council.
“Given where we find ourselves today, we see the agreement as the best way for the United States to leave Iraq promptly and responsibly,” said John Isaacs, executive director of Council for a Livable World. “The agreement reflects the views held by the majority of Iraqis and Americans that it is time for U.S. combat forces to start getting out of Iraq.”
Isaacs is available for comment today (Wednesday, November 26) from Washington, DC until 3PM.
The agreement mandates that “all U.S. combat forces” withdraw from urban areas in Iraq by June 30, 2009, and that “all U.S. forces” withdraw from the country by December 31, 2011. The agreement upholds Iraq’s “sovereign right” to demand the departure of U.S. forces anytime and recognizes the United States’ “sovereign right” to remove its forces earlier than the end of 2011.
For more information about the agreement, see the in depth analysis online.
The agreement also bars permanent American bases in Iraq, prohibits the United States from using Iraqi territory to launch attacks against other nations, and bars any residual U.S. forces in Iraq beyond the end of 2011.
“The signing of this agreement, along with the election of a new president who ran on a platform to end the war in Iraq, suggests that anti-Iraq war efforts have not been in vain,” added Isaacs. “Primary credit of course goes to the Iraqis. They drove a hard bargain.”
As with any complicated accord, not every part of the status of forces agreement is perfect. Downsides include both the Bush administration’s refusal to send the agreement to Congress for approval and various ambiguities in the text that could lead to future disputes.
“Question marks remain in the agreement concerning freedom of action for U.S. soldiers, vague security commitments, and protection of Iraqi assets,” said Travis Sharp, a defense analyst at Council for a Livable World who studied the agreement. “Thankfully the text provides President-elect Barack Obama with flexibility to amend or cancel the agreement if he needs to.”
Galbraith: SOFA is ‘stunning and humiliating’ for Bush
Cross posted from Iraq Insider
Peter Galbraith, a top Iraq expert and former ambassador to Croatia, issued a statement today on the status of forces agreement (SOFA) recently signed by the United States and Iraq.
Galbraith serves as senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the Council’s sister organization.
He said:
“The agreement represents a stunning and humiliating reversal of course by the Bush administration, which had vehemently opposed any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. For the last two years, President Bush has pretended that Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is a democrat and an American ally. In fact, Maliki is a sectarian Shiite politician who heads a government dominated by pro-Iranian religious parties. The U.S. presence now no longer serves the interests of Iraq’s ruling Shiite religious parties or their Iranian allies, so we are now being asked to leave. While U.S. withdrawal is made easier by the fact that both the Iraqi government and the new U.S. administration want American troops out, the confluence of events leading to the agreement underscores the folly of President Bush’s lost Iraq war.”
Of course, we timed this statement to come out this morning because the Iraqi parliament was supposed to vote on the SOFA today. Now, however, it appears that not only has the vote been postponed until tomorrow, but the Shiites and Kurds also have acquiesced to a Sunni demand to hold a national referendum on the SOFA next year. Even if the SOFA is approved by parliament tomorrow, it could still be rescinded if it is rejected in the referendum next year.
I don’t know if this is democracy, but the lack of any clear schedule and the multiple layers of caveats does remind me of the United States Senate. Now, if only we could get these guys to brawl the way the Iraqis have recently.
Anti-Iraq War Group Comes Out in Support of U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement
Council for a Livable World, a leading anti-Iraq war organization, announced its support today for the status of forces agreement recently signed by the United States and Iraq.
How comfortable is the U.S.-Iraq SOFA?
Yesterday we posted a new analysis of the U.S.-Iraq status of forces agreement on the website of the Council’s sister organization. The takeaway, if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing (it’s kinda long), is that a research and advocacy organiza…
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