Iraq is insisting on the right to veto any United States military operations throughout its territory under a ”status of forces” agreement currently being negotiated between Baghdad and Washington, according to a senior member of the Iraqi government.
The agreement will last for a maximum of two years and can be terminated by either side with six months’ notice, Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s Oil Minister, told The Guardian this week.
His remarks come amid intensive closed-door negotiations between the Iraqi and US governments which have led to complaints in the US Congress as well as Iraq that the Bush administration is tying the next US president’s hands by seeking to maintain long-term bases in Iraq for possible attacks on Iran and other neighbouring states.
But Shahristani insisted: ”Neither the Constitution nor our people will allow any violation of our sovereignty. Obviously foreign troops on Iraqi soil carrying out operations without the prior consent and approval of the elected government is a violation. Any arrests, any operations internally or externally against our neighbours without prior agreement of the Iraqi government will be considered a violation … Land and sea movements and air space is all part of Iraq’s sovereignty.”
The status of forces agreement, known as the Sofa, will flesh out a more general ”strategic framework” pact on all aspects of the US-Iraqi relationship that is also being worked out secretly. The two agreements are seen as ”legacy issues” allowing Bush to claim success and a legitimation of the US occupation once the current United Nations mandate runs out at the end of this year.
Before the talks started earlier this year, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, sought to remove nationalist suspicions in Iraq by saying the US had ”no interest in permanent bases”. Shahristani’s disclosure that Iraq wants the Sofa to be ”only short, for one or two years” is designed to put a time limit on the US presence and remove ambiguity about what constitutes a temporary or a permanent base.
The Sofa has aroused fierce controversy in Iraq. No drafts have been published and only a handful of MPs have been shown them. But the government has been forced to give the Iraqi Parliament a vote on the final text, although Washington says it need not go to the US Senate since it is not a treaty. A letter denouncing various leaked provisions of the pact and signed by more than 100 members of the 275-member Iraqi Parliament was handed to US senators recently.
Since the talks began in March, Washington has reduced its demands. ”The first US draft wasn’t even remotely acceptable,” said Shahristani, who is a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia movement that is the largest bloc in Parliament.
The government itself shows various degrees of enthusiasm. The Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, and the Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, who are both Kurds, have made optimistic noises about early agreement. But the Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, was given full control over negotiations by Iraq’s political council for national security last weekend.
Recent concessions by the Americans will allow Iraqi courts to have jurisdiction over the tens of thousands of private contractors in Iraq, who at the moment are immune from prosecution. They will also transfer the 21Â 000 detainees in US prisons to Iraqi custody. But with Iraqi prisons already overcrowded, this may involve a paper transaction, with the Iraqi government having only nominal control while the prisoners remain where they are. The Iraqi government is still insisting that US troops be chargeable in Iraqi courts. The US is unlikely to concede this.
The Bush administration is putting the Iraqi government under intense pressure to agree to the security pacts by July 31. But Shahristani said: ”There is no way for the Sofa to be presented to Parliament before its summer recess.”
The oil minister also disclosed that the Iraqi government expects to sign its first contracts with Western oil companies within the next two weeks. These will be for technical support and repair. Bidding for developing new fields is under way but ”it will be open to competitive tendering”. Shahristani denied this was backdoor privatisation, since the Iraqi National Oil Corporation would retain control of 80% of Iraq’s discovered reserves.
He criticised the Kurdistan regional government for signing agreements with small oil companies for developing new fields in northern Iraq without Baghdad’s consent. ”The companies who have signed these contracts have no right to work on Iraqi territory and they will bear the full consequences of their actions,” he said. —