Roads to Iraq

The final draft of SOFA with the amendments is published by the Iranian Fars News. These are the changes from all previous versions:

The United States army troops should withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later before 31 December 2011, and all U.S. combat forces to withdraw from the cities, villages and towns in Iraq before 30 June 2009, to be stationed in facilities which will be decided by a joint committee to coordinate military operations jmocc.

The agreement will transfer the control over Iraqi airspace to the Iraqi authorities as soon as this Agreement is active. The agreement includes that the U.S. troops are not allowed to arrest any person only in a decision made in accordance with the Iraqi law, except the members of the United States forces or the civilian elements [contractors].

If the U.S. troops arrest people [Iraqis] as authorized in this agreement or by the Iraqi law, these people must be handed over to the Iraqi authorities within 24 hours.

The U.S. forces will provide information on all detainees to the Iraqi government; The U.S. forces will coordinate with the Iraqi authorities to hand over the detainees to issue warrants to arrest the most wanted or to release them according to the Iraqi law.

The U.S. forces are not allowed to raid homes or other properties, only under an Iraqi warrant issued in this regard and in coordination with the competent Iraqi authorities, except in cases where there are ongoing combat operations.

At one point 27 – 3 it says very clear that the U.S. forces are not allowed to launch [aggression] military operations against the neighboring countries. As for the U.S. military post 19 – 5 says it will be supervised by the Iraqi government.

Directly after the announcement of the approval of the security agreement, the Sadrists played down the decision saying:

This [SOFA approval] means nothing because the parliament will reject it.

Iraqpa reported about the increase in security measures in the Southern provinces after Muqtada AL-Sadr announced the formation of the new “Brigade” to fight the American presence. The news site talks about army troops on the ground escorted by American – British military planes.

It seems that the United Iraqi Alliance is waiting for Sistani’s approval first to take a definitive decision as reported on Iraqalaan that a delegation from the United Iraqi Alliance received the green light from Sistani, who himself assured that the parliament will take the final decision [there is some truth in the Sadrists statement].

Other political blocs such as the “Accordance front” announced that this is unconstitutional because there is an article in the constitution says: “voting on pacts must be done according to a law agreed upon by the parliament members”.

This connection between Sistani’s position and the UIA approval is also confirmed by the Green Zone newspaper Al-Sabaah saying that the United Iraqi Alliance met yesterday to discuss the final position from SOFA. The newspaper said that the approval is based on three “positive” points:

- The change of the name of the security agreement.

- A timetable for the final withdrawal.

- An article in the agreement says “Iraq will not to be used as base to launch attacks on neighboring countries”.

It would be interesting to watch how the Iranian are going to take revenge from Al-Hakim in the near future.