Iraqis Get 2010 Combat Withdrawal Date From Bush

by Steve Soto

The relationship between the al-Maliki government and the Bush Administration has shifted in the Iraqis' favor, to the extent that they announce they've obtained an agreement on a withdrawal date even while the Bush Administration denies it.

The proposed agreement calls for Americans to hand over parts of Baghdad's Green Zone — where the U.S. Embassy is located — to the Iraqis by the end of 2008. It would also remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, according to the two senior officials, both close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and familiar with the negotiations.

Moving our forces out of the cities undoes the basic underpinnings of the Petraeus counter-insurgency plan and takes us back to the days of the Casey plan, where our forces would retreat to the bases and stay there until needed. It's clearly the first step by the Iraqis to get us totally out of the country. And Iran is applauding all of this from the sidelines. They've gotten everything they could have wanted without firing a shot, witnessing the US spend over $1 trillion of our own money to do it.

The officials, who spoke separately on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing, said all U.S. combat troops would leave Iraq by October 2010, with the remaining support personnel gone "around 2013."

Note that those dates happen to coincide to the benefit of the political party in power at the time here at home. How much would it help a President Obama or McCain to have the combat forces out of Iraq a month before the 2010 midterms, and to have all forces out of the country by the end of his first term?

And despite the rhetoric by the White House, the Iraqis are saying that Bush has been forced into agreeing to a timetable.

But the Iraqis insisted the dates had been settled preliminarily between the two sides, although they acknowledged that nothing is final until the entire negotiations have been completed.

One Iraqi official said persuading the Americans to accept a timetable was a "key achievement" of the talks and that the government would seek parliamentary ratification as soon as the deal is signed.

And yet Bush could still scuttle the deal, and is acting like he has some leverage left, when in fact he has little.

But differences over immunity could scuttle the whole deal, the Iraqis said. One of the officials described immunity as a "minefield" and said each side was sticking by its position.

One official said U.S. negotiator David Satterfield told him that immunity for soldiers was a "red line" for the United States. The official said he replied that issue was "a red line for us too."

The official said the Iraqis were willing to grant immunity for actions committed on American bases and during combat operations — but not a blanket exemption from Iraqi law.

It sounds reasonable, but isn't good enough for a team that can't read the writing on the wall that they can no longer shoot up Iraqi cities with no consequences.

As the talks drag on, American officials said the Bush administration is losing patience with the Iraqis over the negotiations, which both sides had hoped to wrap up by the end of July.

Of course the White House wants to get a deal done immediately; they want to show the electorate that Iraq is nothing to be worried about, except when McCain needs to scare up the Stepford base. And the Iraqis know this.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and al-Maliki had a long and "very difficult" phone conversation about the situation on Wednesday during which she pressed the Iraqi leader for more flexibility particularly on immunity, one U.S. senior official said.

I'm sure that worked.

The official could not say how long the call lasted but said it was "not brief" and "tense at times."

I suspect that the days of the Bush Administration dictating to the Iraqis are over.