Will Iraq Pass Pact With the US

Shiite's allied with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and the Kurdish bloc in Iraq's ruling body made a key concession Wednesday to the largest Sunni Party in hopes of securing a big majority in a crucial parliamentary vote later in the day on a U.S.-Iraqi security pact.

Sunni Arab lawmakers have listed a host of demands, varying from sweeping political reforms to amnesty for prisoners who number about 16,000, and a national referendum on the pact, even if the parliament passed it; in exchange for supporting the proposed deal.

This proposed deal would let American troops stay in Iraq through 2011, meeting a longtime Iraqi demand for a clear timetable for their exit. The 275-member assembly is due to vote by a show of hands on the wide-ranging accord, which would require US troops to completely withdraw within three years and pull out from Iraqi cities by the end of June.

Maliki's Shiite bloc and its Kurdish allies hold enough seats to propel the pact through parliament, but Maliki needs Sunni votes to prevent sharpening the country's sectarian and ethnic divides. In addition, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has said the pact should have national consensus. Passage by such a thin margin would highlight a failure to achieve the consensus that Maliki seeks.

But the intensity of political maneuvering among Iraqi factions contributed to deep uncertainty about the outcome of a vote scheduled for Wednesday that will determine the status of some 150,000 troops in Iraq after years of war. One Shiite lawmaker said that the government could only count on 139 MPs to vote for the measure, which would mean that it would just barely pass if most of the 275 MPs attended the session. If it does pass, it will pass with a simple majority and not consensus.

It has been reported awmakers arrived at the parliament building for the planned vote in a session scheduled for 7 a.m. EST, but the session did not begin at the appointed hour and the legislators waited for a new time to be set. Fearing insurgent attacks, the Iraqi army and police deployed additional forces around the parliament building and the Green Zone entrance leading to it.

If the pact is not passed by the end of next month, it would leave U.S. forces without legal standing to be in Iraq unless the U.N. mandate authorizing their presence was extended. The mandate expires Jan. 1.

Iraq: The War Continues

The media has mostly dropped their coverage of the occupation of Iraq, but the war continues. Three bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least 20 people. One of these attacks was a suicide bombing near an entrance to the U.S.-protected Green Zone.

These attacks come as Iraqi lawmakers prepare for a vote this week on a security pact with the U.S. and are seen by some as “a calculated show of insurgent defiance” towards the agreement.

The Iraqi parliament has postponed its vote on the proposed US-Iraq security pact from Monday to Wednesday. MPs had complained that there were not given enough time to study its provisions. It is still not clear how the Sunni Arab MPs will vote; without their support, the agreement would likely be seen as a joint Shiite-Kurdish conspiracy.

There is also evidence that the situation is tenuous with both the Sunni's and Kurds. Kurdistan continues to act as an independent country. It was revealed on Saturday that the Kurdish authority have been importing arms from Bulgaria without informing the central government in Baghdad.

Sunni Arabs in Iraq have considerable grievances against the Shia dominated government in Baghdad, though they may be willing to cooperate with it if money and works project flow to their regions. There is still some fear that the central government in Baghdad will not maintain payments to the Sons of Iraq, and Awakening Councils, who ended their insurgency and went on to the American payroll. Now that the Iraqi government has taken over these payments, any disruption or cancellation could lead to serious problems. At the same time the presidency council in Iraq is now criticizing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for building up tribal levies of Shiite Arabs into forces supporting the Prime Minister and his party. There are rumors in Iraq that these are militias that are loyal to the Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party. One of Da'wa's weaknesses has been that it does not have a powerful militia like the Sadarists, the Kurdish parties, or the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. This may play a role in strengthening his party against his Shiite rivals. Maliki has defended the Support Councils as a natural outgrowth of the Sahwa Awakening movement that began in the western province of Anbar in 2006, when the US allied with local Sunni militias to drive out Al-Qaeda.

There are some who look at this with hope. I don't, I see armed camps preparing for another war. Iraq still is in great danger of following the same path as Lebenon.