Thursday, June 11, 2009
(graphic: Karl Egenberger, Envision Design-Plum Creative Associates)
After sacrificing thousands of Americans lives and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to supposedly bring democracy to Iraq, the U.S. government is seeking to suppress the Iraqi people’s right to vote on whether American troops should stay in the country until 2012. At issue is a little-publicized requirement of the security agreement that the United States and Iraq signed late last year. That agreement calls for the U.S. to withdraw its forces from all Iraqi cities by the end this month, and to pull out entirely from the country by the end of 2011. The security pact, however, requires that it be approved by the Iraqi people through a referendum, and that’s got American and some Iraqi officials more than a little nervous.
The consensus among officials from both sides seems to be that if the security agreement is put to a vote, it will be rejected by the Iraqis, most of whom want the U.S. out sooner rather than later. If the security pact was to lose the referendum, the clock would immediately begin ticking, and all American forces would have to be withdrawn within one year from the date of the election.
Given this situation, Washington officials are now trying to get the Iraqi government to not hold the referendum. But that is highly unlikely. With it being an election year in Iraq, and members of Parliament up for re-election, few are willing to be seen as placating U.S. demands to keep American troops around for the next two and a half years. Some Iraqi officials have talked about perhaps delaying the referendum until next January, but others insist the vote must take place this summer, perhaps as soon as July.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Iraq Moves Ahead With Vote on U.S. Security Pact (by Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times)
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