SOFA preview

I will write what today’s arti­cle on Al-Qabas to men­tion that the doc­u­ment uses ambigu­ous phrases and gen­eral terms, which can be inter­preted in many ways. There is also no men­tion of the removal of Iraq from the UN’s arti­cle seven.

It seems also that there are some kind of dif­fer­ences between the Ara­bic ver­sion and the Eng­lish ver­sion but since we don’t have the Eng­lish ver­sion then I can’t say about this.

First it starts with Arti­cle I which explains the pur­pose of this doc­u­ment and it given as following:

Reor­ga­nize the tem­po­rary pres­ence, the activ­i­ties and the with­drawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Arti­cle II explains the terms used in this agreement.

The first term is “Instal­la­tions and areas agreed upon” [which are in my opin­ion is not very good explained]

Instal­la­tions and areas agreed upon are the instal­la­tions and areas owned by the Iraqi state and used by the Amer­i­can forces.

These Instal­la­tions and areas will be iden­ti­fied in alist pre­sented by the Amer­i­cans forces and reviewed by a joint commission.

Note from the Iraqi side:

The Iraqi side asked the Amer­i­can side to attach the list of these instal­la­tions and areas to the agreement.

Arti­cle IIII Tasks

Coop­er­a­tion to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other out­law groups. Strange thing about this is that in point I the same pre­vi­ous text repeated adding “rem­nants of the for­mer regime”

Point II says some­thing about a joint body called JMOCC to coor­di­nates the mil­i­tary operations

Point V is very short and can inter­preted in many ways, it says the following:

There is noth­ing in the agree­ment lim­its the right of the both sides from self-defense.

Very shad­owy, since every mil­i­tary oper­a­tion can be played as “self defense”.

Arti­cle XII is one the arti­cle still in dis­pute between the two sides:

U.S. has the legal author­ity for mil­i­tary forces and civil­ian ele­ments inside and out­side the instal­la­tions and areas only [notice the use of only].

Iraqi side noted:

U.S. has the legal author­ity for mil­i­tary forces and civil­ian ele­ments inside instal­la­tions and areas used by these forces and out­side while they are in com­bat operations.

Amer­i­can side noted:

As tem­po­rary pros­e­cu­tions, until the end of the with­drawal and the com­bat operations.

After that the U.S. becomes the legal author­ity for mil­i­tary forces and civil­ian ele­ments inside and out­side the instal­la­tions and areas

There is also point VI in the same article

Mem­bers of the [Amer­i­can] forces and civil­ian ele­ments arrested or detained by the Iraqi author­ity will be deliv­ered directly to the U.S. authorities.

Iraqi side noted:

Mem­bers of the forces and civil­ian ele­ments arrested or detained by the Iraqi author­ity will be pre­pared to be deliv­ered to the U.S. author­i­ties within 24 hours.

[The Iraqi side sug­gested to treat “for­eign” detainees the same as arti­cle 22 offered  by the U.S. treat­ment of the Iraqi detainees which is: to be deliv­ered to the Iraqi author­i­ties within 24 hours]

Arti­cle XXVI starts with a dis­pute on the name of this article

Noted by the Iraqi side:

The Iraqi side sug­gested to title this arti­cle: “Tran­si­tion the author­ity to the Iraqi secu­rity and the with­drawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq”.

The funny thing is the Amer­i­can side mark.

The Amer­i­can side sug­gested to name this arti­cle: “the with­drawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq”.

One point is very clear in this arti­cle, which is there a timetable for the with­drawal of the Amer­i­can forces from Iraqi cities, vil­lages and streets to their mil­i­tary basses and this is sched­uled 30 Aug 2009.

As for the total with­drawal there is: (.….)