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...Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) has deeply divided Iraq's political factions. Proponents of the pact, led by Maliki's Shi'ite bloc and its Kurdish allies, emphasize that it reflects the fact that the Iraqi government has forced Washington to accept hard deadlines for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and to make other concessions. Nationalist opponents led by firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr reject the agreement in principle, because it gives an Iraqi stamp of approval to the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which is currently authorized by the U.N. Security Council. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc, meanwhile, does...
...much greater say in what U.S. troops do until then. Opponents of the deal warn that the government has signed secret codicils that give the U.S. far greater leeway than advertised and may keep American troops in Iraq indefinitely. Ajil Abdel-Hussein, an MP loyal to the Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, suggested the government was trying to lay the ground for a "new [U.S.] occupation of Iraq." (See pictures of U.S. troops' five years in Iraq...
...SOFA, passed by Maliki's cabinet last weekend, needs to be approved by the 275-member parliament. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most important Shi'ite cleric, has said any deal with the U.S. must be passed by a big majority in order to be truly legitimate in the eyes of the people. That seems unlikely. If the Sunni-Sadrist-secular alliance can break off a few MPs from Maliki's own Shi'ite-Kurdish block, they may even be able to defeat the proposition...
...military presence - checkpoints, patrols, helicopters and jets overhead - many believe American arms have helped bring something approaching normality to much of the country. "I don't like the 2011 deadline. The Americans should stay as long as necessary," said Ziad Mohammed, a Sunni laborer. Fateh Hilli, a Shi'ite shopkeeper, disagreed: "The American presence is a national humiliation and should be removed at once...
...push more out towards the perimeter of the city, but I think that we can work through all of that." Still, Pentagon officials continue to express concern about the ability of the Iraqi military to keep the peace as the Americans pull out. Deep historical animosities among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish groups remain, and local troops loyal to a specific sect won't be as capable of defusing tensions, U.S. officials fear. But Hort said that the Iraqi military "has got a tremendous amount of confidence in themselves, and is doing more and more each and every day that...