November 28, 2008
U.S./Iraqi Security Pact Approved
Twenty-seven of the 28 cabinet ministers who were present at the two-and-a-half-hour session voted in favor of the pact. Nine ministers were absent. This pact calls for a full withdrawal of American forces by 2011. This is was a big step closer to the end of the Iraq war after more than 5 and ½ years of war. The proposed agreement, which took nearly a year to negotiate with the United States, not only sets a date for American troop withdrawal, but puts new restrictions on American combat operations in Iraq starting Jan. 1 and requires an American military pullback from urban areas by June 30. Iraq also obtained a significant degree of jurisdiction in some cases over serious crimes committed by Americans who are off duty and not on bases. The White House welcomed the vote as an important and positive step, towards the end of the war. “This vote shows that the Iraqis have figured out how to stand up for themselves, to Iran and to the U.S.,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a specialist on Iraq at the Brookings Institution. “They will have stared in the face at the various options and concluded that none are ideal, but the best for their security is an amount of ongoing but finite American cooperation, while also indicating their strong desire to run their own country on their own as soon as possible.”
U.S./Iraqi Security Pact Approved
Twenty-seven of the 28 cabinet ministers who were present at the two-and-a-half-hour session voted in favor of the pact. Nine ministers were absent. This pact calls for a full withdrawal of American forces by 2011. This is was a big step closer to the end of the Iraq war after more than 5 and ½ years of war. The proposed agreement, which took nearly a year to negotiate with the United States, not only sets a date for American troop withdrawal, but puts new restrictions on American combat operations in Iraq starting Jan. 1 and requires an American military pullback from urban areas by June 30. Iraq also obtained a significant degree of jurisdiction in some cases over serious crimes committed by Americans who are off duty and not on bases. The White House welcomed the vote as an important and positive step, towards the end of the war. “This vote shows that the Iraqis have figured out how to stand up for themselves, to Iran and to the U.S.,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a specialist on Iraq at the Brookings Institution. “They will have stared in the face at the various options and concluded that none are ideal, but the best for their security is an amount of ongoing but finite American cooperation, while also indicating their strong desire to run their own country on their own as soon as possible.”