Yes, your Public Asshole Number One cum Nincompoop-In-Chief has cut
off "negotiations" with Iraqi government officials because Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his political allies REFUSE to agree to a
permanent U.S. occupation of their nation.

Which the Bushies find shockingly unacceptable!

"In May, Iraqi and foreign media published U.S. negotiators' demands
that one administration official now describes as "frankly
unrealistic," including unilateral control over U.S. combat and
detainee operations, immunity for U.S. personnel from Iraqi
prosecution, and control over Iraqi airspace. Additional accounts
outlined a list of 58 separate military installations that would
remain under U.S. control."

"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."

-----------------------------
"U.S., Iraq Scale Down Negotiations Over Forces"

"Long-Term Agreement Will Fall to Next President"

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2008; A01

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."

Unlike the status-of-forces agreements between the United States and
countries such as South Korea and Japan, where large numbers of U.S.
troops have been based for decades, the document now under discussion
with Iraq is likely to cover only 2009. Negotiators expect it to
include a "time horizon," with specific goals for U.S. troop
withdrawal from Baghdad and other cities and installations such as the
former Saddam Hussein palace that now houses the U.S. Embassy.

The fixed dates will likely include caveats referring to the ability
of Iraqi security forces to take over from U.S. units, but without
them, U.S. negotiators concluded that Iraqi acquiescence was doubtful.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his political allies have come
under intense domestic pressure to reject any perceived infringement
on Iraqi sovereignty. Maliki, who last week publicly insisted on a
withdrawal timeline, wants to frame the agreement as outlining the
terms for "Americans leaving Iraq" rather than the conditions under
which they will stay, said the U.S. official, who like others spoke on
the condition of anonymity because U.S.-Iraqi negotiations are
ongoing.

The idea, he said, is to "take the heat off [Maliki] a little bit, to
rebrand the thing and counter the narrative that he's negotiating for
a permanent military presence in Iraq."

The most contentious unresolved issue is the legal immunity of U.S.
troops and Defense Department personnel from Iraqi prosecution for any
alleged crime. "We're trying to come onto the same page," a second
U.S. official close to the negotiations said. "But with U.S. forces in
potential combat situations, we have some real bottom lines.

"But even on that question, it's one thing on immunity if in the Iraqi
mind it's an agreement for U.S. troops forever," he said. "It's
another thing if these immunity arrangements are temporary because
U.S. forces are temporary."

Largely cosmetic compromises have been made on other difficult
questions, such as the formation of joint U.S.-Iraqi commissions to
oversee all unilateral U.S. combat and detainee operations and provide
a veneer of Iraqi control. Washington has acquiesced to Iraqi refusal
to grant immunity to private contractors, an issue that is
controversial because of incidents in which American security
contractors have killed Iraqi civilians.

U.S. and Iraqi officials also hope the new, bare-bones agreement --
called a "temporary operating protocol" in Washington and a
"memorandum of understanding" in Baghdad -- will allow them to
sidestep significant political roadblocks that have impeded completion
of a broader agreement.

The status-of-forces negotiations have been sharply criticized by
Democrats, and some Republicans, as an attempt to tie Bush's successor
to the president's policy in Iraq. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the
presumptive Republican presidential nominee, supports the
administration position. He has said he hopes to bring U.S. combat
troops home by 2013 but has insisted that any timeline or lessening of
U.S. control over its own operations would undercut recent military
gains and aid U.S. enemies.

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the presumptive Democratic nominee, has said
he would immediately begin withdrawing combat troops at a rate of one
or two brigades a month, a pledge he has softened recently by saying
he would consult with U.S. commanders on the ground. But he has said
that after 16 months in office, the U.S. presence in Iraq would be far
smaller than the 144,000 troops there now, with only a "residual"
number remaining.

Lawmakers have also objected to Bush's insistence that a status-of-
forces agreement -- and a separate strategic framework outlining broad
economic, political and security cooperation -- can be enacted with
his signature alone and does not require congressional approval.

With some U.S. troops expected to remain in Iraq no matter who becomes
president, administration officials said they anticipated that
negotiations over a long-term status-of-forces agreement would
continue. But with the end of the U.N. mandate looming, one official
said, "we need a bridge which allows us to have some measure of
authority to continue operations" after December.

Protest over the agreement has been far more vociferous in Iraq, where
Maliki's government -- heading toward provincial elections this year
and a parliamentary election in 2009 -- has been scrambling to show
that it is reclaiming Iraqi sovereignty from the Americans. Just one
month after discussions on the status-of-forces agreement began in
March, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned in an interview that a
U.S. draft was unacceptable.

In May, Iraqi and foreign media published U.S. negotiators' demands
that one administration official now describes as "frankly
unrealistic," including unilateral control over U.S. combat and
detainee operations, immunity for U.S. personnel from Iraqi
prosecution, and control over Iraqi airspace. Additional accounts
outlined a list of 58 separate military installations that would
remain under U.S. control.

Maliki's political competition, led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr, deemed the absence of a timeline a deal-breaker. Iraq's top
Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, warned against any
agreement that violated Iraqi sovereignty and was not approved by the
Iraqi people.

In late May, Maliki told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the
negotiating process "was not working," one U.S. official said. Beneath
the public controversy over major issues, negotiators were locked in
the minutiae of arrangements over things such as environmental
regulations and license plates for U.S. vehicles -- standard items in
formal status-of-forces agreements with other countries -- and "we
weren't having the strategic level conversation we needed to be
having," the official said.

Bush subsequently instructed U.S. negotiators to "be more flexible and
open-minded," one official said. But it was becoming clear that the
July 31 deadline for completion -- set to ensure a deal was in hand
before the August Iraqi parliamentary recess, the month-long
observance of Ramadan in September, and the final stretches of the
U.S. presidential campaign -- would not be met.

"What we're doing now is more . . . a bridge to have the authority in
place so we don't turn into a pumpkin on December 31," the official
said. Neither country wants an extension of the U.N. mandate. Iraq has
rejected its explicit limits on sovereignty, and the administration
believes that a limited extension would only postpone the need for a
bilateral accord and potentially leave U.S. troops with "our backs
against the wall."

According to U.S. officials, Maliki also hopes that a temporary
protocol would circumvent the full parliamentary review and two-thirds
vote he has promised for a status-of-forces agreement. "He is trying
to figure out, just as we did, how you can set up an agreement between
the two and have it be legally binding," one official said, "but not
go through the legislative body."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/12/AR2008071201915.html...