Bush team pushes hard for Iraq security deal

The Bush administration has launched a top-level lobbying campaign to persuade skeptical U.S. lawmakers and disapproving Iraqi politicians to support a security agreement governing the continued presence of American troops in Iraq.

 

Although congressional approval is not legally required, U.S. lawmakers' support is considered crucial for an agreement to go forward. In Iraq, where the deal must pass through several complex layers of approval, the going is considered even tougher.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, are among those reaching out to key members of the House and Senate. Rice also is pressing senior Iraqi leaders to accept the deal.

The agreement includes a timeline for U.S. withdrawal by 2012 and a crucial but unpopular compromise that gives Iraq limited ability to try U.S. contractors or soldiers for major crimes committed off-duty and off-base, officials said Thursday.

The campaigns of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain, both on Senate committees that deal with the issue, have been briefed on the draft.

Obama spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, "had productive conversations this afternoon" with Rice. "They look forward to reviewing the text of the draft agreement."

Obama, in a statement he and other senators released during the summer after a trip to Iraq, said they had discussed with Iraqi leaders "the need to give our troops immunity from Iraqi prosecution so long as they are in Iraq."

Rice on Wednesday called senior Iraqi leaders, pressing them to accept the deal that contains elements that many in Baghdad see as a violation of their country's sovereignty, officials said.

"The Iraqis are considering the text, we are talking to the Iraqis," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. He said Rice had spoken to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite and a top member of the Supreme Council.

A statement from Abdul-Mahdi's office said he and Rice discussed "ways to promote the agreement in line with the interests of the Iraqi people and to guarantee all their rights." Abdul-Mahdi also met on Thursday with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, officials said.

U.S. officials said Rice and Crocker told the Iraqis that the agreement is critical for future U.S.-Iraq relations and that it is the final offer the administration is willing to make. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations.

The administration's greatest concern for the deal's future is not Congress but Iraq's fractured internal political system. There is some pessimism in Washington that the agreement will survive the Iraqi approval process.

The administration had hoped to conclude the agreement by the end of July, to leave plenty of time to sell it before the current U.N. mandate for the U.S.-led international force in Iraq expires on Dec. 31. Now it has less than three months to go before that legal cover for U.S. forces disappears.

The U.N. mandate could be extended, but that could be a difficult process, and is a route neither the Iraqis nor the U.S. relish pursuing.

Without either a deal or an extension, the worst-case scenario is that U.S. troops in Iraq would have to be confined to their barracks.

Congress is not in session and it was not clear Thursday how many members had been contacted. The message Bush aides are delivering is that the deal is the best U.S. negotiators were able to get from the Iraqis under current political circumstances there, the officials said.

The administration always expected the legal jurisdiction issue to be the most difficult in the negotiations. Some U.S. lawmakers have deep concerns about allowing Iraq's fledgling judicial system to have even limited authority over American soldiers.

"I am skeptical of any agreement that would subject U.S. servicemen and women to the jurisdiction of Iraqi courts in the middle of a chaotic war and in the absence of a judicial system that has been proven to be fair and protective of the rights of individuals," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Levin's office said Gates had briefed the senator on the draft on Thursday and that Levin expected to see and review a copy of it on Friday before making any further comment.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said she was "deeply disturbed" by the details of the agreement as reported in the press.

"Our men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq should be protected and I am concerned this new agreement, by subjecting them to an immature Iraqi legal system in the midst of a conflict, will not do that."

Pentagon officials also have expressed concern but Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that Gates accepts the agreement.

"I don't think the secretary would be making phone calls in support of the document if he didn't believe it adequately protected our forces in Iraq," Morrell said. "He is comfortable with the document that he is calling people about today."

Morrell would not provide details of the draft, but acknowledged there are withdrawal timelines. He said those dates "are goals that ... will only be followed if the conditions on the ground provide for it."

Other provisions of the draft give Iraqis a far greater role in U.S. military operations than at any time during the nearly six-year war. American troops would no longer be allowed to detain suspects or search homes without Iraqi legal authorization except in active combat. In addition, anyone detained by the Americans must be handed over to the Iraqis within 24 hours, and all detainees currently held by the U.S. must be released or transferred to Iraqi control.

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