Saturday, June 27, 2009
U.S. Army soldiers depart Forward Operating Base Falcon, Iraq, aboard a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, April 12, 2009. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Daniel Owen)
As with almost any agreement, there’s always the fine print. Iraqis making plans to celebrate the “victory” of American troops pulling out of their cities by June 30 might want to check out certain, little-noticed exceptions to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the U.S. and Iraq signed last year. For instance, the 3,000 American soldiers stationed within Baghdad at Forward Operating Base Falcon are staying put because U.S. and Iraqi leaders have agreed to gerrymander the local map to show the base is outside city limits.
Then there’s the trick of “reclassification.” While combat troops will soon be bunking outside urban boundaries, many have been reclassified as “support” or “advisory” personnel to allow them to fulfill roles inside cities. Mosul is a perfect example. Military commanders from both sides have agreed to allow U.S. soldiers to operate in five locations in the violence-torn northern city. According to Major General Robert Caslen, the senior U.S. officer in northern Iraq, American soldiers will be supporting “Iraqi forces in anything they want” following the June 30 deadline.
Also, the SOFA says nothing about the more than 130,000 military contractors operating in Iraqi cities, including 36,000 Americans.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
A Withdrawal in Name Only (by Erik Leaver and Daniel Atzmon, Foreign Policy in Focus)
Iraqi, US Commanders Strike Mosul Deal (agence France-Presse)
Withdrawing Combat Troops from Iraq…Kind of, Sort of, Maybe (by Aaron Wallechinsky, AllGov)
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