Iraq: We'll Negotiate Long-Term Presence

(CBS/AP)  Iraq will ask the U.N. Security Council to extend the mandate of 160,000-stong U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq for only one more year - through the end of 2008, foreign ministry officials told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Officials said Iraq would seek a long-term, bilateral security agreement with the United States like the ones Washington has with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Egypt.

Aides to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the mandate extension for the U.S.-led forces in Iraq, due to be discussed at the end of this year, would be "the last extension for these forces."

Zebari, who has been in New York for the General Assembly session, first disclosed the plan in an interview with the London-based Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the Security Council on June 8, 2004, said the U.S.-led multinational force would remain in Iraq at the request of the interim government that was about to assume control of the country from the United States and Britain.

The resolution, drafted by the United States, authorizes a review of the mandate at the request of the Iraqi government every six months. The mandate last was extended for one year on Dec. 31 and expires at end of this year.

"We will ask the council to extend the mandate for another year...then our negotiations with the Security Council will be kicked off," Zebari was quoted as saying.

"We will ask the council to include an article that allows Iraq to enter into negotiations with the United States to reach long-term security agreements to meet Iraq's security needs bilaterally," Zebari added.

"The negotiations and talks over the security agreements will take a long time as they will cover the issues of sovereignty and immunity, the mission of these forces, Iraq's security needs and the role of the U.S. forces in training (Iraqi forces)," he said.

Zebari said the bilateral agreement would "not set a timetable (for withdrawal of U.S. forces)...but could include an article calling for decreasing their numbers."

Meanwhile, Iraq's vice president said Saturday that his country will not be used as a base to launch attacks against Iran or Syria.

Adel Abdul-Mahdi said he discussed security and other regional issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad during their meeting Saturday in Damascus. In response to a reporter's question about a possible U.S. military strike against Iran, the Iraqi vice president said: "Iraq does not accept that its territory be used for any aggression against any neighboring country."

He also predicted the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq by the end of 2008; he did not elaborate.

In Other Developments:

The military says two more U.S. soldiers were killed today. A brief military statement says a Task Force Lightning soldier was hit by "enemy gunfire" in restive Diyala province that is north and east of Baghdad. A separate statement says the soldier who died in south Baghdad was hit by small arms fire during a firefight. 3,803 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion.

A military panel sentenced an Army sniper to five months in prison, a reduction in rank and forfeiture of pay for planting evidence in connection with the deaths of two Iraqi civilians. Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, 22, was acquitted of murder charges in the April and May deaths of two unidentified men. The panel decided he was guilty of a lesser charges of placing detonation wire on one of the bodies to make it look as if the man was an insurgent. "I feel fortunate that I have been served this sentence," Sandoval said. "I'm grateful that I'm able to continue to be in the Army."

Iraq's sectarian violence claimed 18 more lives on Saturday, including six people killed when a suicide truck bomber detonated his explosive payload near a Humvee filled with Iraqi soldiers, officials said.

On Saturday, Iraqi soldiers acting on a tip tried to intercept the suicide driver as his pickup truck headed toward Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. As the Iraqi Humvee neared the truck, the driver detonated his explosive payload, according to the officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Three soldiers and three civilians were killed, the official said.

Also Saturday, drive-by gunmen killed a Sunni sheik near his home in Mosul's Mithaq neighborhood, said a police spokesman. Sheik Ghanim Qassim was a mosque preacher and member of Mosul's edict commission, a religious rule-making body.

Police also said a 50-year-old journalist visiting his brother in the Bab al-Baidh neighborhood of central Mosul was killed on Saturday morning, caught in a mortar attack.

Late Friday, police officials said Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos handed over nine decomposing bodies to a hospital in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

[getloud1]

***** Stop The War & Corporate Corruption *****

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Prinzowhales wrote:

"v_1618--If Bush were foolish enough to have tried to ''''bring us cheap oil'''', he would have been impeached during his first term...The whole point of the Stupid Peoples'''' War is drive the price of oil upwards. The oil boys want the cheap production so they can manipulate the price...when they limit its production, their own resources become more lucrative.

This war was about oil, but not about bringing a nation full of obese ''''tards piloting SUVs around to the Dunkin''''Donuts cheap gas."

Indeed. GW Bush''s rich pals paid for his Presidency and he returned the favor by making them even richer.

It''s not about you and I - though we pay the cost - it''s all about his rich buddies becoming richer then they were before.

GW Bush doesn''t give a hoot about America.

[telecom_1]

BAGHDAD %u2014 U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend, with most of the casualties believed to have been Al Qaeda fighters, officials said.

http://www.foxnews.com/

[lars008-2009]

LOOK WHO IS TARGETING CIVILIANS!!!

Qaeda warns of attacks ''worse than 9/11''
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070530102648.wuwa6k96&show_article=1

Hizbullah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem: We Have Jurisprudent Permission to Carry Out ''Martyrdom'' Operations, Fire Missiles on Israeli Civilians From Ayatollah Khomeini
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD154907

Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp

But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.

"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.

Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.

The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108
American Al Qaeda Member Threatens Attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/29/terror/main2865282.shtml

[lars008-2009]

it is fascist nazi terrorislam stupid,,,

non muslims of the world unite,,, fight against the tyranny of the fascist nazi terrorslam imperialist empire of the darkside,,,

I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist
By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair''s bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.
More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570&in_page_id=1770

Bless the Beasts and Children
Fascist nazi terrorslam kills every man woman and child in the village again%u2026 typical mo for terrorslam%u2026
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm

Our Prophet commanded us to fight the kaafirs when we are able and to attack them in their homelands and to give them three choices before we enter their lands: either they become Muslim and be like us, sharing our rights and duties; or they pay the jizyah (poll tax) and feel themselves subdued; or they fight, in which case their wealth, women, children and homes become permissible as booty for the Muslims.
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=13759&ln=eng&txt=before%20islam%20arabia%20pagan

the truth about fascist nazi terrorislam...
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

[prinzowhales]

v_1618--If Bush were foolish enough to have tried to ''bring us cheap oil'', he would have been impeached during his first term...The whole point of the Stupid Peoples'' War is drive the price of oil upwards. The oil boys want the cheap production so they can manipulate the price...when they limit its production, their own resources become more lucrative.

This war was about oil, but not about bringing a nation full of obese ''tards piloting SUVs around to the Dunkin''Donuts cheap gas.

[v_1618]

BUSH THE MAN WHO SOLD THE UNITED STATES FOR CHEEP OIL...

[prinzowhales]

It seems that the surge has about run its course and it is time for Barney''s protege, General Betrayus, to take another walk down his Potemkin Village street, Haifa Sttreet, in Baghdad, ''where the skies are not cloudy all day,'' to sell his ''all is swell'' message to the War Pig faithful.

[prinzowhales]

The Iraqi VP announced from Damascus that Iraq will not be used as a base from which to launch an attack against Iran or Syria.

This toothless muppet is deluding himself. If a private security firm can murder Iraqi citizens on the streets of its capital with impunity, who can trust the word of one of the rulers of the Green Zone?
These Quislings can''t even control their own capital, just what kind of deluded souls think that the Iraqi government has any control over what its masters will or won''t do?

[prinzowhales]

That the US muppet regime in Baghdad is represented at the UN is as sick a joke as the multiple representatives of the constituent states of the USSR in that worthless body. The US Senate just presumed to vote a partition in Iraq..."All Iraq is divided into three parts."...A private contracting firms employee machinegun a crowd of ''free'' Iraqis and they walk free today and the firm is still in business in Iraq...Seven Iraqi children are murdered playing a game by a US helicopter gunship (aren''t our pilots ever so courageous?...Brits, children and old women aren''t safe, but the al CIAda just walk between the raindrops)

Troops Home Now! Bring an end to the Washington Regime''s genocidal rule in Iraq. One million Iraqis have died--the rest want the US troops our of Iraq. Only the Quislings want us to stay. The real enemy of the people of the United States are in the board rooms, the international banks and in Washington and London. Restore the Republic!