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Baghdad: The Iraqi and US governments are to sign a long-term military cooperation agreement within a framework of strategic friendship and cooperation that will be complete in about two months.
These negotiations seem to be very difficult for Iraqis because Americans have rejected the restrictions and conditions which the Iraqi government intends to impose on American forces operating on its territory, according to the Iraqi Parliament Security and Defence Commission's Vice Chairman, Abdul Karim Al Samarai.
Samarai told Gulf News: "There are disagreements with the Americans about the number of military bases that the Americans want to build and their locations, in addition to the power and authority that forces can enjoy inside Iraq."
Al Samarai said the Iraqi and American sides both agree about the importance of these military bases, but during negotiations another problem has emerged. Americans seem to be putting off the Iraqi government's demand for a US pledge to take all practical steps to lift the international trusteeship on Iraq. That would mean releasing Iraq from the seventh item of the United Nations Charter which recognises this tutelage.
Approach
According to sources in the Foreign Ministry, the Iraqi side consists of a joint committee of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the presidency and the premiership, and the American side consists of representatives of US forces in Iraq, the US Department of Defence and representatives from significant security services in the United States with the CIA at the forefront.
The commander of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, Jaafar Al Barazanji, confirmed that there is a serious American approach to establish military bases in Iraq's northern region of Kurdistan. He told Gulf News: "The existence of the military bases is so essential for Iraq's security and therefore there must be American bases in Kurdistan, middle and south of Iraq. The Iraqi armed forces do not seem to be able to protect borders and address terrorism ... therefore the American bases should exist for the next 15 or 20 years."
Al Barazanji affirmed that there are internal risks to Iraq's democratic future and there is a large flow of Islamic fundamentalist organisations in the Middle East which requires an American commitment in any long-term agreement to defend Iraq's security and its ongoing political process.
Some political sources close to the Iraqi government confirmed that Kurds have accepted establishing most of the US military bases on Kurdistan's territory, if the controversy continues over allocating them in Shiite southern or Sunni western provinces. These bases may justify the continuation of the armed Iraqi resistance in these territories.
Hashim Hassan, a professor of media and information at Baghdad University, warned about the consequences of the US military bases' long-term presence in Iraq. He said to Gulf News: "The presence of these bases will fragment the Iraqi internal front because these military bases will be in the interest of one party. Besides, it can be a factor of concern for some regional countries close to Iraq, as Syria and Iran could use these bases to strike them. As for the Gulf states and Egypt's concern, there would be the possibility of using bases for political and moral pressure to accept implementing American democracy in the region."
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