US: Iraqi politics stalling security pact

IRAQ WARS

Massud Barzani, the president of Iraq's northern Kurdish government.

Syria deploys extra troops on east Lebanon border: army
Syria has deployed extra troops on its border with eastern Lebanon to combat smuggling and arrest fugitives, a Lebanese army official said on Thursday. "Syria is deploying soldiers along the length of the border of eastern Lebanon, as it did in September on the northern border," the official told AFP, asking not to be named. "These reinforcements have been positioned for the same reasons which necessitated the deployment in the north, to combat smuggling and prevent wanted persons escaping across the Syrian-Lebanese border," he said. "The Syrian troop movements have been coordinated between the heads of the Syrian and Lebanese armies," he said. A local official, meanwhile, said almost 3,000 troops equipped with armoured vehicles and heavy weapons had been deployed in a region facing the eastern Lebanon village of Ersal. Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, after contacts with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, earlier this month accepted that the troop movements along the border were aimed at tackling smuggling. In September, the Lebanese army revealed the deployment of 10,000 Syrian special forces in the Abbudiya region along the northern border. Members of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in Lebanon, however, warned that Damascus could be setting the stage to return its forces to their country. Syria, a longtime powerbroker in its smaller neighbour, withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2005 after a deployment of three decades.

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2008
The White House on Thursday charged that politics and posturing in Iraq were delaying a controversial US-Iraq security accord but said it remained "hopeful and confident" about the pact.

Days before the November 4 US elections, spokeswoman Dana Perino said "on our side, I don't think that politics is playing a lot of a role in it" because both US presidential hopefuls were generally supportive of the accord.

"On the Iraqi side, I can't say the same when it comes to internal politics there. And they might even be looking at our domestic politics and trying to game that out, some people, maybe," she told reporters.

Perino spoke after Massud Barzani, the president of Iraq's northern Kurdish government, said in an interview with the Washington Post that he was "doubtful" of prospects for the accord's passage in Baghdad.

"If you stick around, I'm sure by tomorrow you'll have a different Iraqi politician or leader with a different sentiment. So a lot of this is being played out in the public on the Iraqi side," said Perino.

US officials were poring through proposed Iraqi amendments to the accord, which would spell out the rights and duties of US forces in Iraq and provide a legal framework for their presence in Iraq when their UN mandate expires in December.

"I do think it will be hard for Iraq to pass it. If it was easy, it would already have been done," Perino said. "We remain hopeful and confident that we'll be able to get an agreement done."

The spokeswoman brushed aside talk of seeking a stop-gap UN mandate if negotiations on the security pact seem likely to fail, saying: "We've gotten this far, we might as well try to continue to work on it."

"We remain hopeful that we can help solve these last remaining issues," she said. "I'm not going to forecast any alternatives, because our sole focus is working on this."

The United States has warned it is not inclined to endorse proposed Iraqi amendments to the pact, which US officials received Wednesday and planned to review for several days before giving a formal answer.

The amendments include a push to delete any reference to the possibility of US troops staying in Iraq beyond 2011, Ali al-Adib, a member of the Shiite Dawa party and close ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told AFP.

The latest version allows either side to ask to extend the deadline, though doing so requires the approval of both.

Adib said another would change the rules on immunity for American soldiers to give Iraqis a say in whether a US soldier suspected of crime was on a mission, which under the latest version would protect the soldier.

Washington has piled pressure on the fledgling Baghdad government to accept the accord as negotiated thus far.

"We think we have a good agreement. And the window for any kind of discussions, negotiations is ... rapidly coming to a close," US State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Thursday.

Bush had hoped to have the accord in hand by July 31, but now is all but certain not to see it approved before the November 4 elections to choose his successor.

The draft version has drawn fire from Iraqi political figures on grounds that it undermines their war-torn country's sovereignty, likely to be a key theme in local and regional elections set for January 31.

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IRAQ WARS

Window closing 'rapidly' on Iraq security pact talks: US

Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2008
The United States warned Thursday that the window on difficult negotiations for a US-Iraq security pact is "rapidly coming to a close" as it reviewed proposed Iraqi changes to the deal.

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