Posted by Damozel | Color me surprised. The Guardian somehow got hold of the memo:
The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security" without time limit.
The authorisation is described as "temporary" and the agreement says the US "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq". But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces - including the British - in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US. (The Guardian)
Well, as Hillary said, it's one way to ensure that the next administration's hands are tied. But can the Bush Administration do this without Congressional approval?
The defence secretary, Robert Gates, argued in February that the planned agreement would be similar to dozens of "status of forces" pacts the US has around the world and would not commit it to defend Iraq. But Democratic Congress members, including Senator Edward Kennedy, a senior member of the armed services committee, have said it goes well beyond other such agreements and amounts to a treaty, which has to be ratified by the Senate under the constitution.
Administration officials have conceded that if the agreement were to include security guarantees to Iraq, it would have to go before Congress. But the leaked draft only states that it is "in the mutual interest of the United States and Iraq that Iraq maintain its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence and that external threats to Iraq be deterred. Accordingly, the US and Iraq are to consult immediately whenever the territorial integrity or political independence of Iraq is threatened."(The Guardian)
I'm far from credentialed in these matters, but I'm not surprised. Some months ago in November 2007, there was a report that the US and Iraq were trading friendship rings or something. The Declaration of Principles printed here promised long-term friendship with Iraq. First the pre-engagement, then the secret engagement behind the disapproving backs of those who think they know better than the parties themselves what's good for them; that's the way these things go, am I right?
Meanwhile, Petraeus is telling Congress all about how well the surge is working. I suppose it depends on your definition of 'working', but everyone knows that if someone holds down a spring, it will stay down for as long as someone's there to compress it. Of course, if the person's hand gets tired or something distracts them, boing. Right back to where it was before,
Petraeus will be facing a more skeptical Congress than in September.
"I think all of us realize we're disappointed at where we are," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said at a hearing last week. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) asked, "How do we get out of this mess?" While the cost in U.S. lives and money increases, said another senior GOP senator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity: "We cannot . . . just say we're coasting through and waiting for the next president."
Among the questions these and other lawmakers said they plan to ask Petraeus and Crocker is why the United States is still paying for Iraqi domestic needs ranging from military training to garbage pickup when the Maliki government has $30 billion in reserves -- held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland -- as well as $10 billion in a development fund, significant budgetary surpluses from previous years and a projected 7 percent economic growth rate for 2008.
Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), the panel's ranking Republican, who projected that Iraqi oil income would reach $56.4 billion this year, asked the Government Accountability Office last month to investigate how much money the Iraqi government has.
"I think it's a very significant issue that has not had sufficient exposure," Levin said in an interview. "They're perfectly content to watch us spend our money while they build up these huge cash reserves from oil windfalls. It's a real stick in our eye, as far as I'm concerned." (WaPo)
But let's be fair. While some might feel impatient about having to keep the oil barons on welfare as well, there's a reason why they're spending our money instead of their own:
Charles P. Ries, Crocker's deputy for economic policy in Baghdad, said in an e-mail that both the Iraqi constitution and Iraq's arrangement with the International Monetary Fund prohibit spending the nation's reserves. The amount in Iraq's accounts, he said, is not "abnormally high to back up the dinar, given the size of the economy and their dependence on a single commodity for most of export revenues."(WaPo)
And in some ways it seems things might be getting worse, despite all the US taxpayer can do to make them better.
Despite considerable U.S. expenditures on oil and electricity infrastructure, oil exports and the supply of electricity and other services have not risen significantly since 2004. In early April, according to State Department statistics, the electricity supply met 58 percent of demand, compared with 66 percent a year earlier. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported last month that "millions of Iraqis have insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and health care."(WaPo)
In the meantime, no one seems to feel that five years of US training has prepared the Iraqi security forces to go it alone yet, judging by what military officials observed in Maliki's confrontation with Sadr:
Lawmakers said they want to question Petraeus about the performance of Iraqi security forces in last week's military engagement between government forces and the Mahdi Army militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Basra. The fighting, along with continued intra-Shiite fighting in Baghdad that killed at least four U.S. soldiers over the weekend, has complicated efforts to portray Iraq as moving toward stability.....
U.S. military and administration officials...judge Iraqi forces, despite five years of U.S. training, as ill prepared for the mission, which lacked cohesive planning and ultimately ended in a draw, at best, with the Sadrists. U.S. air power was called in to back flailing government forces three days into the operation.....
While some Iraqi troops "fought well," [a senior US military official] wrote in an e-mail, others were "largely ineffective." Up to 1,000 army and police personnel reportedly either deserted or refused to fight. In the National Police, which is known to be sympathetic to Sadr, "hundreds" of officers were fired, one administration official said.(WaPo)
In other words, they're not ready for prime time, I guess.
So with all this, and with all the speculation preceding it, nobody can be really surprised that the Bush Administration is making plans to stick around for an indefinite period. I
If 'success' as defined by the surge depends on keeping that spring pushed down, I'm not sure how the Bush Administration or Petraeus can maintain it unless we keep on pushing it down...
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