January 25, 2008
The New New Way Forward In Iraq
To non-hyperpartisans who've been following developments in Iraq, it's been clear for some time that there will be a significant U.S. presence there going into the next decade, regardless of which party rules the White House next year. Though both sides called a de facto truce in Congress following the anticlimactic testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in September, lawmakers appear to be getting their sea legs back on the war debate.
A skirmish is just now brewing over the White House's negotiations with the Iraqi government concerning the longer-term American posture there. "Status of forces" agreements are standard issue with allies; we have one with more than 120 countries, according to the State Department. Iraq, of course, is not just any country, and Democrats are nervous that the new agreement will lock the U.S. into a deeper, more long-term engagement than they'd like.
It's already playing on the campaign trail. In a debate in Las Vegas last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama agreed to pursue legislation requiring President Bush to request congressional approval for the Iraq status of forces agreement. "I think we have to do everything we can to prevent President Bush from binding the hands of the next president," Clinton said.
Presidents usually don't have to bring those agreements before Congress, but administration officials acknowledged to the Washington Post that they might have to submit the Iraq agreement for lawmakers' approval.
The reason being that this won't be the usual SOF deal. While the Iraqi military will be responsible for leading combat missions, U.S. forces will be in place to go after al-Qaida and other terrorist elements. One troubling aspect of the agreement is that U.S. troops would be withdrawn back to their bases. That could mean that the 24 provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) scattered through Iraq's hot spots, which deserve the lion's share of credit for making the "surge" strategy work, will be dismantled.
Though Bush and his allies have been trumpeting the surge as a success, there is suspicion that the PRTs are acting as stoppers in a still-volatile climate. The New York Times reported yesterday that at least 100 members of the so-called Sunni Awakening -- Sunni leaders and militiamen who've allied with the U.S. against al-Qaida -- were picked off in the past month alone. The truce with these Sunni elements was an uneasy and fragile one from the start, and no one can say with any confidence what direction the Awakening will take after this summer, when U.S. troop levels will be back down to 130,000.
From what we know so far about the agreement, which is still very much in the drafting stage, U.S. forces will have freedom to conduct operations pretty much as they do now. Whether they can do so unilaterally without first requesting permission from the Iraqis will be hammered out during negotiations, administration officials told the New York Times.
The administration is also emphasizing that it is not seeking permanent bases or even a minimum of guaranteed troops levels. "I think it's pretty clear that such an agreement would not talk about force levels. It would not involve -- we have no interest in permanent bases," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Pentagon briefing yesterday.
Administration officials are complaining that lawmakers are overreacting to what they say is a de rigueur agreement to have with a military ally. "First of all, as I think we all know, the presence of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq has, until now and through the end of this coming year, been governed under Chapter 7 UN Security Council resolutions," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said yesterday. "The Iraqis have told us and told the United Nations that once the current resolution expires at the end of the year, they would like to move towards a more normalized relationship with the United States and with other countries that may continue to have a troop presence in Iraq."
The agreement, Casey said, was basically a vehicle to move the two countries toward normalization. That shouldn't be a surprise, since the U.S. is now at war with insurgent elements in Iraq, not with the Iraqi government as it was during the invasion.
Calling it "a very basic agreement," Casey said that the topics addressed would be workaday fare, including jurisdiction over U.S. forces and arrangements for "duty-free transshipment" of troop supplies.
"Now, there has been some comments that I've seen from other quarters that express concern that this agreement would somehow be establishing bases or in some way trying to limit options of policymakers now or in the future, and that's certainly not the case," Casey continued. "What this arrangement does is make sure that whether it is this president or any of his successors that they have the full range of policy options available to them."
This being an election year, Democratic lawmakers will probably still not make it easy for the administration to strike this accord. MoveOn.org has been collecting signatures demanding congressional involvement, the Washington Post reports. And if the deal does contain a security guarantee binding the U.S. to Iraq's defense, constitutional experts say it will have to be brought before Congress, the Boston Globe reports today. It does seem reasonable to assume that the White House will take measures to avoid a tug of war with Congress, particularly if the agreement grants immunity to contractors in Iraq.
Officials testified before a Senate subcommittee yesterday that DOD did not have the means to oversee the more than 196,000 contractors employed by the U.S. in Iraq. There is intense pressure in Iraq and on the Hill to establish more oversight over contractors following several possibly criminal incidents over there, including the slaughter of civilians and the alleged rape of a female contract worker.
The administration argues that without immunity from local laws, contractors will be reluctant to work in Iraq. Contractors already outnumber U.S. troops there, and officials have acknowledged that the long-term burden of reconstruction and security will fall heavily on private employees. If the agreement is submitted to Congress, then, expect a long and nasty fight over that provision, among others.
Posted at 1:08 PM
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Al-Qaida, Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Congress, Constitution, Democrats, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Iraq, Middle East, Military, President Bush, Robert Gates, Terrorism, WH 2008
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