Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

[seafan]

Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

By GARY LEUPP
June 6, 2008

Dick Cheney wants the Iraqi government installed by the U.S. occupation to sign a “security pact” with Washington by the end of July. (The pact, including a status-of-forces agreement, would be signed by the U.S. president but not constitute a treaty requiring Congressional approval.) U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has been feverishly struggling to meet the deadline and to commit the next administration to the agreement’s terms. But that may be a tall order. Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki says negotiations are only in a beginning stage; public opinion is opposed to the pact based on leaked information about its content; and a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament have endorsed a letter to the U.S. government demanding U.S. withdrawal as the condition for “any commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States.”

Few Americans are familiar with the proposed treaty. If they were, they might be shocked at its provisions, ashamed about its naked sadism. It:

* grants the U.S. long-term rights to maintain over 50 military bases in their California-sized country

*allows the U.S. to strike any other country from within Iraqi territory without the permission of the Iraqi government

*allows the U.S. to conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting with the local government

*allows U.S. forces to arrest any Iraqi without consulting with Iraqi authorities

* extends to U.S. troops and contracters immunity from Iraqi law

*gives U.S. forces control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft.

* places the Iraqi Defense, Interior and National Security ministries, under American supervision for ten years

*gives the U.S. responsibility for Iraqi armament contracts for ten years



But Iranian political leader Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani hardly exaggerates in saying the proposed deal is designed “to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans” and to create “a permanent occupation.” Many Iraqis use similar language. “The agreement wants to put an American in each house,” claimed a supporter of Shiite cleric and nationalist firebrand Mutada al-Sadr. “This agreement is poison mixed in poison, not poison in honey because there is no honey at all.” “Why,” he asks, “do they want to break the backbone of Iraq?”

The mainstream Shiite cleric and politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC; formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq or SCIRI), agrees that the proposed agreement would “violate Iraq's national sovereignty.” He claims a “national consensus” against it has developed. (President Bush in December 2006 met with al-Hakim, calling his “one of the distinguished leaders of a free Iraq,” and he is sometimes mentioned as Washington’s first choice for prime minister if al-Maliki doesn’t adequately put out. So his opposition is especially significant.)

Al-Hakim is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most widely respected Shiite cleric in 60% Shiite Iraq. The ayatollah is thought to oppose the pact but has not yet made a pronouncement about it. Meanwhile the Association of Muslim Scholars, the largest Sunni political group in the parliament, warns that the pact paves the way for "military, economic and cultural domination” by the Americans.

Al-Sadr’s followers staged rallies around the country after prayers last Friday and plan to continue weekly peaceful demonstrations demanding that the Baghdad government hold a national referendum on the security treaty issue. The U.S. opposes such a referendum, aware that pact opponents would surely win.

.....

Time is running out for the Bush-Cheney Heist End Game.

Meanwhile, there’s this other Iraqi item on Cheney’s urgent to-do list: the passage of the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law by the Iraqi Parliament. This was drafted by BearingPoint (a McLean, Virginia-based management consulting provider listed by the Center for Corporate Policy as the number 2 top war profiteer of 2004) in February 2006 and then presented to the newly-appointed Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani. Shahristani then met in Washington DC with representatives of Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips to get their comments on the draft. He promised the International Monetary Fund that the Iraqi parliament would pass the law by the end of 2006, but its members hadn’t even seen the 33-page draft law yet. Months earlier an Oil Ministry official had said that Iraqi civil society and the general public would not be consulted at all on this matter.

A secret appendix to the draft law, according to London-based Iraqi political analyst Munir Chalabi, “will decide which oil fields will be allocated to the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC) and which of the existing fields will be allocated to the IOCs . The appendices will determine if 10% or possibly up to 80% of these major oil fields will be given to the IOCs.” This, in other words, is another national humiliation in the offing. As six women Nobel Peace Prize recipients wrote in September 2007, it “would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model to a commercial model that is much more open to U.S. corporate control. Its provisions allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of Iraq and into the pockets of international oil companies.”

It is one of those “bench marks” the Bush administration has imposed on Iraq, with Congressional support, as conditions for U.S. withdrawal, but even the most recent revised version, hammered out between Kurdish representatives and the Maliki cabinet, faces tough political opposition. Cheney was hoping this would be a done deal---done quickly on the sly---as of last summer. But al-Maliki still hasn’t delivered, and as a State Department report to Congress in April 2008 notes, labor opposition is formidable: “The 26,000 member Iraq Federation of Oil Unions has voiced its members’ strong opposition to the current draft of the hydrocarbon framework legislation and has demonstrated a capacity to disrupt oil production and refinery operations with strikes.”

Blackmail, extortion, imperialism, monumental greed, absolute tyranny.


It's the Bush way.



STAND STRONG, IRAQIS.

[tazkcmo]

1. Finally!

A united Iraq!

[bdamomma]

2. I hope the Iraqis tell Dick to shove it.

[democrank]

3. Read it and weep.

King George and his sidekick Cheney should be behind bars instead of dreaming up plans to sink their claws a little deeper into Iraq.

[dysfunctional press]

4. how could the next president be beholden to this misadministration's illegal policies?

i don't understand what type of agreement could be reached that couldn't simply be undone by the next president...anyone? :shrug:

[Mist]

8. I'm assuming it's not binding if Congress isn't involved. Or even if Congress IS involved. nt

[klyon]

30. that is correct... if it is not a treaty ratified by Congress then

it ain't nothin'
Iraq knows we will have a new Pres, hopefully they will just ride out the Bush administration
Time for another vacation

[alstephenson]

5. k & r (in disgust)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. Cheney is VICE President?

No. Really?

I thought he was President.

Don't Vice Presidents go to funerals, and stuff like that?

[jakem]

7. he only does funerals when he can tear out the heart and eat it.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. Oh.

They frown on that kind of thing at state funerals. Except, I think, in Uganda. Or is it Mississippi?

I forget.

[Contrary1]

9. But, but, but, just yesterday there was this:

U.S. ambassador says no permanent military bases in Iraq

"The U.S. ambassador to Iraq says the Bush administration is not trying to set up permanent military bases in Iraq.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker rejects the notion that the legal and military agreements he wants this year are blueprints for an everlasting American military presence inside Iraq.

Crocker told reporters at the State Department on Thursday that the U.S. presence will not be forever.

He says the agreements will be public and free of any secret provisions. He wants to get one deal done by the end of July and the other by the end of the year."

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080605/NATION/806050469/1020

In Bushworld, it's all in the doublespeak. "Long-term" does not mean "forever"...yet.

[jimshoes]

11. Where to begin upon learning of something

that egregious, outlandish, abhorrent. Were annexing Iraq like Hitler annexed the Sudetenland. We are telling the Iraqis to go fuck themselves, were moving in, like it or not.

[Contrary1]

12. I will start another thread pertaining to the oil fields that I just read in my linked article above

:wow:

[seafan]

13. Juan Cole: 'Large demonstrations against the security agreement, barely covered by the US press'

From Juan Cole:

Although the Bush administration is playing hardball to get this wideranging set of commitments from Iraq before July 31, and although Iraqis are eager to escape Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which limits their government's sovereignty, the negotiations may collapse in the face of widespread opposition to the baldly neocolonial terms sought by Washington. Even remaining under the UN Security Council, under Chapter 7, may be preferable to Baghdad.

There were large demonstrations against the security agreement, barely covered by the US press, last Friday, and Iraqi religious and political leaders are coalescing against it. Postcolonial states of the Arab world, which only attained real independence from Britain and France with great difficulty and in living memory, are touchy about being seen as kowtowing to imperial demands. The Shah's government was overthrown in 1979 by huge crowds and a wide cross section of the public precisely on these grounds.

Shiites torch US flag in Baghdad (AFP)

BAGHDAD (AFP) — People torched a US flag in Baghdad's Shiite stronghold of Sadr City after weekly Friday prayers to denounce a proposed agreement to deploy American troops in the country beyond 2008.
The protesters also set on fire an effigy of US President George W. Bush and vowed alliegance to anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, as Iraqi troops watched from rooftops, an AFP correspondent said.

Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki agreed in principle in November to sign the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) by the end of July, but negotiations appear to have hit a snag.
Iraq has a "different vision" from the US over the proposed deployment and wants to protect is national interests, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Tuesday.

Shiite prayer leader Sattah al-Batat told worshippers the agreement "would give full authority to the Americans as well as the right to do whatever they want without fear of retribution.
"As long as Moqtada Sadr rejects the agreement, it will not be signed" by the government, Batat told worshippers. A banner read: "The agreement with the Americans is an act of war against the Iraqi people."

Draped in a white shroud, a traditional symbol of religious martyrdom, and with an Iraqi flag tied around his neck, Batat said the American powers would be far too broad, even preventing President Jalal Talabani freedom of movement.

"American soldiers will have the right to forbid our president to land in Iraq or even go home to his house," he said.

Sadr has vowed to keep up a campaign of protest to force the government to relinquish the agreement.

.....

Time is running out for Bush/Cheney.

[jimshoes]

15. I think this will be the straw that

broke the camel's back. There aren't enough "surges" in the world if the majority of Iraqi's take up arms against us.

[Faryn Balyncd]

22. This calls for DEMONSTRATIONS HERE : " No - illegal - treaties - without - Senate - approval ! "

Any Senator who remains silent violates his oath to support the United States Constitution.

This is absolutely critical.







:kick:





:kick:

[ForeignSpectator]

28. So illegal treaties are okay WITH Senate approval?

Sorry but your line asked for it!

:P

[Faryn Balyncd]

29. you got me !

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

14. Well, just FORGET about any "poltical reconciliation" in Iraq!!!

Any of the "U.S. installed" members of Parliament voting for such a "pact" will be sought after,...in a vengeful way!

THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!

How is it that the Bush administration is able to do this UNILATERALLY, without any Congressional oversight and approval?

Screw it!!! Obviously, Bush/Cheney and their lot are INTENTIONALLY STIRRING UP DISASTER in Iraq. They should be confined to a 4' X 6' cell for the rest of their lives!!!

Damnit!

[CanonRay]

16. And Iraq is supposed to be an independent country?

Puerto Rico is more independent than that. China has less control over Tibet.

[jimshoes]

17. Bringin' democracy to Iraq

cowboy style.

[Disturbed]

19. Oil

[seafan]

18. Secret appendix to the draft decides which oil fields will be allocated to internat'l oil companies

From this link:

A secret appendix to the draft law, according to London-based Iraqi political analyst Munir Chalabi, “will decide which oil fields will be allocated to the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC) and which of the existing fields will be allocated to the IOCs . The appendices will determine if 10% or possibly up to 80% of these major oil fields will be given to the IOCs.” This, in other words, is another national humiliation in the offing. As six women Nobel Peace Prize recipients wrote in September 2007, it “would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model to a commercial model that is much more open to U.S. corporate control. Its provisions allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of Iraq and into the pockets of international oil companies.”

Is everyone reminded of THIS?


CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS, Press Release, July 17, 2003

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org.

.....

Maps and Charts of Iraqi Oil Fields

But, impeachment is off the table.



So far.

[TahitiNut]

20. Any "agreement" made at the point of 150,000 guns is just another war crime.

We are a nation of cowards and criminals unless and until Cheney, Bush, and that despicable cabal of crimnals are prosecuted and imprisoned.

[Pastiche423]

21. This needs a lot more exposure!

Recommend.

[seafan]

23. BBC: Israeli minister: "Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable."

Israeli minister threatens Iran

updated at 14:54 GMT, Friday, 6 June 2008 15:54 UK


Mofaz, a former army chief, may be lining up a challenge to Olmert

A top Israeli official has said that if Iran continues with its alleged nuclear arms programme, Israel will attack it.

Speaking to Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said sanctions on Iran were ineffective.

.....

Again, from the OP:

Dick Cheney wants the Iraqi government installed by the U.S. occupation to sign a “security pact” with Washington by the end of July.

One of its provisions:

*gives U.S. forces control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft.

Catastrophe looms and Bush has his foot on the gas.

[bluesmail]

24. Iraq is an aircraft carrier. Big planes land/take off

this is so sickening. The Ultimate Police State. And if it works there, it might work here.

[frog92969]

25. We thought it was bad now.

I saw some of the protest on Jim Leher and it seems like the Iraqis are well aware of what this means. If Bu$hCo somehow pulls this off none of their neighbors are gonna be real happy either. Chimpy might get his WWIII, or at least scare enough of us into voting repug like last time. A real win-win for the sick bastard.

Where's the UN while this crime escalates?
Are they doing like Pelosi and waiting for us to vote?

[mls]

26. It's all part of their M.O.

Bush/Cheney always demand the most over the top outrageous things in order to get a least one item on their list. They don't realize the Iraqis are not the American Democratic Congress.

Why would the Iraqis agree to any of this bullshit? They want us out of their country and they will never put up with this even if it were forced on them. I should say especially if it were forced on them.

[hobbit709]

27. They gave it away with the original name for the invasion

"Operation Iraqi Liberation"-OIL!

[Turner Ashby]

31. The London Independent is reporting

that we are threatening to take the billions in our banks under the UN Sanctions if Iraq does not approve the Iraq Security Agreement. I tend to believe the Independent as they have a very deep and knowlegable Middle Eastern staff. All I could think of (and I don't know WWII that well) was didn't Hitler give some Prime Minister some ultimatum to join the Reich? Sudentland, Czechs? One of them. I remember he fainted. I think the amount is about 40 billion we would be able to take if they don't agree to the "Security Agreement" or legally steal, I should say.

[onetwo]

32. "We will be greeted as liberators..."

...then slap them on the back of the head and tell them who we really are.

[Uncle Joe]

33. Does Cheney want the right to impose a tea tax on them?

I wonder if he wants a stamp act, we could make money on their postage?

It seems to me the last thing Cheney wants in Iraq is for that country to be peaceful and have an independent government.

Thanks for the thread, seafan

[whistle]

34. Sounds like occupation terms and conditions to me