Thursday, May 21, 2009
The political art of redrawing urban boundaries, long an American tool in elections, is being applied to the U.S. effort to keep troops in cities in Iraq despite a legal agreement to remove them. Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that officials in Washington and Baghdad agreed to last November, American forces are supposed to withdraw from all cities and villages by June 30. That agreement has posed a problem for the US Army’s Forward Operating Base Falcon, located within Baghdad city limits.
The U.S. and Iraqi governments have agreed that it would be a mistake at the current time to remove the base’s 3,000 troops because of the need to maintain security in volatile south city neighborhoods. But American and Iraqi officials don’t want to violate the SOFA either—so they decided to redraw the city map of Baghdad. Presto! Forward Operating Base Falcon is no longer inside Baghdad. One U.S. commander said the SOFA was “a living document” in explaining how the two sides justified the gerrymandering.
Political cartography won’t help U.S. and Iraqi leaders in resolving security concerns in other areas of Iraq that remain unstable due to attacks from insurgents. Both sides have yet to decide if it will be necessary to keep US troops in cities like Mosul or in provinces such as Diyala beyond the June 30 deadline.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Meet June Deadline, US and Iraqis Redraw City Borders (by Jane Arraf, Christian Science Monitor)
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