War Every Day (eIraq Blog): US troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, or they won't

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War Every Day (eIraq Blog)
US troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, or they won't

Jeff Severns Guntzel, Electronic Iraq

Oct 15, 2008

The United States is one step closer to a "status of forces" agreement with Iraq. Here's the Guardian's Simon Tisdall on the news:

US troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011 and American and British soldiers deployed there in the interim period could face prosecution in Iraq's courts for serious, premeditated "off-duty" crimes, under the terms of a draft status of forces agreement outlined today by officials in Baghdad and Washington.

The draft agreement, which is intended to replace the UN security council mandate that legitimized the US-led invasion in March 2003, and subsequent occupation, follows months of fraught negotiations. It must be ratified by the Iraqi parliament before the end of the year.

And that's where things stand--namely, on paper-thin ice. Tisdall continues:

The agreement, if implemented, would mark a potentially significant milestone in the slow, often painful evolution of independent, Iraqi self-government since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein five years ago. It represents a climbdown by the Bush administration, which had previously refused to set a deadline or timetable for a troop withdrawal.

But is a timetable for withdrawal what we're really looking at here? Among the myriad of reasons for the "slow, often painful evolution of independent, Iraqi self-government," is a co-dependence nurtured by a robust and disempowering U.S. occupation.

Perhaps the most important words in the description of the tentative withdrawal agreement are "unless Iraq asks them to stay longer." On its face, this sounds quite consensual. But consent is a tricky thing with an imbalance of power as acute as that between the United States and Iraq.

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