US-Iraq Agreement Leaked
Friday 05 September 2008

by: Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | Report


A leaked draft of the US-Iraq status of forces agreement indicates that there is no intent to set a deadline for the withdrawal of "noncombat" troops from Iraq. (Photo: Ceerwan Aziz / Reuters)
A leaked version of last month's draft of the proposed US-Iraq status of forces agreement (SOFA) suggests that the Iraqi parliament may not be consulted before it is signed, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's promises to do so. The pact would govern the future US presence in Iraq. The draft indicates no intent to set a deadline for withdrawal of "noncombat" troops from Iraq. It also grants immunity from Iraqi law to US military personnel, no matter where they are located.

The draft was translated and provided to Truthout by Raed Jarrar, Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee. It comes after months of assurances from Maliki that the agreement would be sent to parliament. However, the draft SOFA states, "This agreement goes into effect on the day that diplomatic memos confirming all constitutional procedures have been met in both countries are exchanged," and sets a December 31 deadline for this memo exchange.

Designating a memo exchange between executive branches as the go-ahead to put the plan into action opens up a gaping loophole, making it simple to bypass parliamentary ratification, according to Jarrar. Since the "constitutional procedures" that are to be followed aren't specified - and Iraq's laws are not yet set in stone - the Maliki administration's lawyers could easily interpret a bilateral executive agreement as constitutional. Unlike parliament, the Iraqi executive branch operates out of the US green zone and is backed by the United States.

"I won't be surprised if someone in the Iraqi executive branch decides that it is enough to read the agreement before the parliament, or 'consult' with them, or pass it as a law with simple majority or whatever other tricks they might pull," Jarrar told Truthout, adding that the December 31 deadline makes the language even more suspect. "How can they make sure all 'constitutional procedures' [are completed] before December 31? What will happen if they are not done?"

The prospect of an impending deadline certainly clashes with hopes of parliamentary approval, according to Dr. Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, head of the Iraqi parliament. In a rare interview with the news agency Al-Arabiya, Al-Mashhadani stressed that parliament could not even consider a SOFA right now, since a law governing procedures on international agreements has not been passed.

"The Iraqi constitution determines that the House of Representatives must first enact a law to ratify the Law of Treaties and Agreements, and must vote or pass this law through parliament by two-thirds majority," Al-Mashhadani said. "So, before discussing the treaty, we must enact this law by two-thirds."

Al-Mashhadani stated that the Law of Treaties and Agreements would "take a long time to pass," and would "not be enacted before the end of the year."

Therefore, the SOFA draft deadline would not allow the possibility of parliamentary approval before passage.

http://www.truthout.org/article/us-iraq-agreement-leaked


Time to write our representatives. We are bulldozing over the government we supposedly set in place for the sole purpose of governing themselves after we leave.

This whole thing just reeks to high heaven.

Nothing is leaked.

It is intentional, there is an agenda to everything that is done.

It is done for diversion of a bigger issue they want to seem small 'compared to this' when it comes out, or if it's out and the impact hasn't fully hit yet this will make that more trivial. People are less likely to worry about a scandal when focusing on 'the supposed leak.' Or it was done for a polling.

Politicians do work with media.