Bush wants permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. No he doesn't. Yes he does?
Since telling the truth about, well, just about anything has not been a hallmark of the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove & Co. era, what's an inquisitive news watcher to make of a headline-making report (a news story that itself made news around the world) in yesterday's Independent? Penned by journalist Patrick Cockburn, the article in the British daily reported that the Bush gang's representatives in Baghdad are negotiating a "secret deal"that "would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November." (See also Le Monde)
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in Najaf, south of Baghdad, last month: On the receiving end of Bush pressure to agree to a permanent, U.S.-military presence?
Details of the agreement the Bush gang is cooking up with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Cockburn noted, "are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq," where government officials "fear that the accord, under which U.S. troops would occupy permanent bases [and be able to] conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, [would] destabilize Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country." The Independent pointed out that "Bush wants to push [the proposed agreement] through by the end of next month so [that] he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the U.S. presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the [presumptive] Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw U.S. troops if he is elected president...."
The British newspaper noted that the "precise nature of the American demands" on Iraq's government "has been kept secret until now." Perhaps unsurprisingly, the information that has leaked out about the proposed arrangement is expected to provoke "an angry backlash in Iraq." One Iraqi politician told the Independent: "It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty." He pointed out "that if the security deal [were to be] signed it would delegitimize the government in Baghdad[,] which [would] be seen as an American pawn."
In fact, on Wednesday the Associated Press reported that, while on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani "told a gathering of Muslim figures in the holy city of Mecca that the United States is trying to enslave Iraqis" through the so-called security deal it is now discussing with Iraq's government. Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, now "heads two of the country's most powerful [Islamic-]clerical governing bodies, the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts." His remarks in Mecca "were the strongest and most high-level public condemnations of the potential security deal by an Iranian official." Rafsanjani told his audience: "The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves before the Americans....This will not happen. The Iraqi people, the Iraqi government and the Islamic nation will not allow it." The senior Muslim cleric noted that the U.S. "occupation of Iraq represents a danger to all nations of the region" and predicted that the agreement the Bush gang is concocting with the current Iraqi government would lead to a "permanent occupation" of Iraq. (AP, via S.F. Gate)
The Independent also reported that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki "is believed to be personally opposed to the terms of the [proposed] pact but feels his coalition government cannot stay in power without U.S. backing." The paper added that al-Maliki's government would like to "delay the actual signing of the agreement[,] but the office of Vice President Dick Cheney has been trying to force it through. The U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has spent weeks trying to secure the accord."
Crocker, in Washington for meetings with his Bush-gang masters, yesterday told reporters about the so-called security agreement that is being worked out with Iraq: "There aren't going to be any secret provisions, attachments, protocols or whatever. This will be a transparent process." The American diplomat "rejected suggestions" that the Bush gang "wanted a permanent military presence in Iraq and that it was negotiating for dozens of long-term bases across the country...." Crocker stated: "We are not seeking permanent military bases in Iraq. That is just flatly untrue. Nor are we seeking to control Iraqi air space. That is another enduring myth...." (Reuters)
If the U.S. stays in Iraq permanently, how long will this go on? Above: An Iraqi man hosed down his burned shop after clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City on May 13, which police said killed 11 people and wounded 20 others.
Writing separately in the Independent, former Iraqi finance minister Ali Allawi offered a history lesson. He recounted: "In 1930[,] the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty was signed as a prelude to Iraq gaining full independence. Britain had occupied Iraq after defeating the Turks in the First World War and was granted a mandate over the country. The treaty gave Britain military and economic privileges in exchange for Britain's promise to end its mandate. The treaty was ratified by a docile Iraqi parliament but was bitterly resented by nationalists. Iraq's dependency on Britain poisoned Iraqi politics for the next quarter of a century. Riots, civil disturbances, uprisings and coups were all a feature of Iraq's political landscape...."
Now, Allawi notes, as Bush presses a "security agreement" on al-Maliki, Iraq is "faced with a reprise of that [1930] treaty, but this time with the U.S., rather than Britain...The U.S. is pushing for the enactment of a 'strategic alliance' with Iraq, partly as a precondition for supporting Iraq's removal from its sanctioned status under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter....It has been structured as an alliance partly to avoid subjecting its terms to the approval of the U.S. Senate, and partly to obfuscate its significance....Of course the terms of the alliance for Iraq will be sweetened with promises of military and economic aid, but these are no different in essence from the commitments made in Iraq's previous disastrous treaty entanglements....It is only now that Iraqis have woken up to the possibility that Iraq might be a signatory on a long-term security treaty with the U.S., as a price for regaining its full sovereignty. Iraqis must know its details and implications. How would such an alliance constrain Iraq's freedom in choosing its commercial, military and political partners? Will Iraq be obliged to openly or covertly support all of America's policies in the Middle East?" Allawi warned that such an important accord must not be "rammed through with less than a few weeks of debate." To do so, he argued, would risk allowing Bush's proposed, euphemistic "strategic alliance" to become "a divisive element in Iraqi politics." If that were to occur, it would "have the same disastrous effect as the treaty with Britain nearly eighty years ago."
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