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Officials set to decide length of US stay
Thursday 28 July 2011
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said today that political leaders were close to reaching an agreement on whether to invite the United States to extend its eight-year occupation of the country beyond the end of the year.
Mr Maliki stressed that the final decision would be up to Iraq’s parliament but said he had spoken to US Vice-President Joe Biden on Wednesday about the issue.
Mr Biden met Iraq advisers yesterday but no details of the meeting had been released when the Morning Star went to press.
The US had previously pledged to withdraw all troops by December 31 but is now hinting that it might leave up to 10,000 soldiers in Iraq to “train” Iraqi troops.
The Iraqi government is worried that its own security forces may be unable to repress unrest in the country, which still sees frequent sectarian violence, and more recently has experienced an upsurge of anti-government demonstrations over access to water and electricity.
Senior US officials have expressed similar concerns about security.
Basic services continue to function poorly as infrastructural damage sustained in 2003’s US-led invasion has not been repaired in many parts of the country.
But the prospect of continued occupation is unpopular in Iraq and could lead to an escalation of violent resistance from groups such as Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
Meanwhile suicide bomber struck at a bank today in Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, killing 12 people and wounding 30.
The bomber attacked as policemen were queueing to collect their pay cheques.
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