Leaked Draft Agreement Calls for Indefinite Occupation

[NicholeW.]

While Bush Announces 8,000 Troop Withdrawal, Leaked Draft Agreement Calls for Indefinite Occupation
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted September 11, 2008.

Iraqi Blogger Raed Jarrar: The U.S./Iraq agreement legitimizes long term bases and calls for an indefinite number of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/98473/

Amy Goodman: President Bush announced Tuesday he would withdraw 8,000 troops from Iraq by February. He also called for a, quote, "quiet surge" in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The President outlined his plan in a speech at the Naval War College.

President George W. Bush: [General Petraeus has] just completed a review of the situation in Iraq, and he and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended that we move forward with additional force reductions. And I agree. Over the next several months, we will bring home about 3,400 combat support forces, including aviation personnel, explosive ordinance teams, combat and construction engineers, military police and logistical support forces. By November, we'll bring home a Marine battalion that is now serving in Anbar province. And in February of 2009, another Army combat brigade will come home. This amounts to about 8,000 additional American troops returning home without replacement.

AG:But neither Senator Obama nor President Bush made reference to a recently leaked draft of an Iraqi-U.S. agreement that outlines the long-term status of U.S. forces in Iraq. Iraqi blogger and political analyst Raed Jarrar has read and translated the leaked document. He says the agreement doesn't set a deadline for the withdrawal of non-combat U.S. troops in Iraq. He joins us also from Washington, D.C.

[lisagurl]

Anything that happens after January will have someone else's approval.

[Laura91]

Anything that happens after January will have someone else's approval.

That is if the election even occurs.