U.S., Iraq Scale Down Negotiations Over Forces

[cal04]

Source: Washington Post

Long-Term Agreement Will Fall to Next President
U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

Although President Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, "we are talking about dates," acknowledged one U.S. official close to the negotiations. Iraqi political leaders "are all telling us the same thing. They need something like this in there. . . . Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/12/AR2008071201915.html?hpid=topnews

[Tutonic]

1. The American people need to get out of bed with Bush!

Al Malakhi has made it very clear that the US OCCUPATION of Iraq will be ending in 2008. In 2009, the US troops will withdraw with the cooperation of the Iraq government. And the dream of several embassies? The US will have one embassy like every other nation. Our days have been numbered for sometime. The big banks, insurance, oil and other US corporations have conspired to keep a Bush clone in place for another four years but world leaders will ensure that events prevent this from occurring. We will have a change of guard and we will have an end to the Iraqi OCCUPATION and we will not be attacking Iran in 2008.

[Solly Mack]

2. "blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task "

lololololol

Yes, it's all the fault of the Iraqis