Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a timetable for withdrawal of US forces from his country, which the Pentagon reacted to immediately in essence telling him they’ll do whatever they please, whenever they please in Iraq. Such rejections have been made continuously by all branches of government, from the executive to the legislative and the military, throughout the US occupation of Iraq. What I found interesting however, is the play on words response from the Pentagon reacting to Iraqi concerns about the the US-Iraqi security pact under negotiations.
Whitman (Pentagon spokesperson) said the United States had made clear “that we have no long term desires to have forces permanently stationed in Iraq.”
Here you can find a very nice description of how deceptive the above statement from the Pentagon spokesman is. Among the points made were these:
Iraqi officials quickly figured out that the real significance of the draft’s wording on access to military bases was that it contained neither a time limit on access to Iraqi bases nor any restrictions on the U.S. to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security”.
Authorization for such operations was called “temporary”, but the absence of any time limit makes that seemingly reassuring term meaningless as well.
The Bush administration’s renunciation of “permanent bases” was a ploy to lull the key committees of the U.S. Congress on an issue which had aroused many Democratic critics of the war, who had repeatedly used that term in demanding a legal commitment on the issue.
The Iraqis don’t understand minutae, or nit-picking as we call it, so the subtleties of US wording might go completely over their heads. They can however cause problems by denying the US an agreement before the end of 2008 when the UN mandate for US troops in Iraq ends, and that’s why the US is so desperate to conclude an agreement before that time. Stay tuned!
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