Iraqis rally over US security deal

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia have taken to the streets of Baghdad and other cities to protest against a long-term security deal with the US. The rallies after Friday prayers follow a call by Muqtada al-Sadr for weekly protests against the deal that could lead to more US troops and a long-term US presence.

Washington wants the Iraqi government to provide a legal framework for US troops to remain in Iraq beyond the expiration of a UN mandate in December. Officials from the administration of George Bush, the US president, told Al Jazeera they expect to finalise the deal by the end of July.

A statement from al-Sadr's office called the negotiations "a project of humiliation for the Iraqi people".

Sheikh Salah Obaidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, said the call for protests is not a "threat" to the Iraqi government, but a "warning". Al-Sadr, a Shia leader who has the backing of the al-Mahdi Army militia, called for the weekly protests on Tuesday and warned the government against signing the agreement, saying "it is against the interests of the Iraqi people".

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, another leading Shia figure, spoke out against the agreement, saying it would violate Iraq's sovereignty.

Last week, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, also reportedly expressed his anger, saying he would not permit the Iraqi government to sign a deal with "US occupiers" as long as he lived.

Via Al Jezeera.


Comment:

Why is the Bush administration so averse to victory? Once we finally reduce al-Qaeda in Iraq to utter insignificance — and I would be absolutely flabbergasted if that still had not happened by the time the mandate expires in December — our job will be complete. We will be able to withdraw; when we do so, the attacks against our troops will obviously stop, and Iraq will have become as stable as can reasonably be expected for a country in the Middle East. If, however, we do make this deal, then the current fragile peace that exists between the government and the Shia (and, most likely, the Sunni as well) will be broken. If we make the deal, we will have needed to make it; if we do not make it, we will not have needed to make it.

We must withdraw, not only for Iraq, but for us as well. I have calculated that by freeing up all of the troops who are currently deployed in Iraq, and allowing them sufficient time between deployments, we would be able to triple, if not outright quadruple, the size of the Coalition forces in Afghanistan. President Obama will then be able to show Bush what a real surge looks like.