The Corporate Media has barely noticed the biggest foreign policy story of the year: Bush's surrender to Iraqi demands for a date certain for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. (Sorry John McCain, this agreement is not "conditions-based." Sorry Dana Perino, there is no "time horizon.")

In the binary world of conservative ideology, there can only be one winner and one loser. In this case, Iraq won and the U.S. lost.

Conservative ideology also requires all defeats to be blamed on somebody. After Mao's Communists beat Chiang Kai-shek and took over China, conservatives demanded to know "Who lost China" - as if it was somehow America's fault, rather than Chiang Kai-shek's. And ever since Richard Nixon pulled the last U.S. troops off Vietnamese roofs in helicopters, conservatives have tried to blame "the liberal media" for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

So for generations to come, conservatives will demand to know "Who lost Iraq?" The first strike in this debate comes from Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers, who quotes cowardly jerks (Sarah Palin's apt description of anonymous critics) with top jobs in Bush's Pentagon, which makes them Neocons. 

Why the U.S. blinked on its troop agreement with Iraq 

Although the Pentagon officially has welcomed the new accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, senior military officials are privately criticizing President Bush for giving Iraq more control over U.S. military operations for the next three years than the U.S. had ever contemplated.

So who lost Iraq? George Bush. But conservative ideology also needs a "conspiracy theory" to explain such treason. So what's the narrative? 

Officials said U.S. negotiators had failed to understand how the two countries' political timetables would force the U.S. to make major concessions that relinquish much of the control over U.S. forces in Iraq. They said President Bush gave in to Iraqi demands to avoid leaving the decisions to his successor, Barack Obama.

At times, "President Bush wanted this deal more than the Iraqis did," said a senior administration official who closely monitored the negotiations.

So the conservative narrative is that Bush wanted to make the deal, not leave it to Obama. Why exactly isn't clear.

This official, and others, all who spoke anonymously to be candid, offered a first glimpse into the dynamics of the secret negotiations, which gave Iraq almost unprecedented control over U.S. troops in the period between Jan. 1 and a final U.S. withdrawal from Iraq on Dec. 31, 2011.

Yeah that part of the deal is pretty treasonous if you're a conservative who believes American troops should never be answerable to anyone but their Commander-in-Chief - and even then only if he's a Republican. 

As part of the accord, which U.S. and Iraqi officials signed in Baghdad on Monday, Iraq will have potential authority over U.S. military operations, intelligence-gathering, cargo shipments and even the mail sent to American troops. Foreign contractors are subject to Iraqi law. On Jan. 1, Iraq will assume control of the U.S.-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, and of the nation's airspace.

That's a very long list. In other words, Bush gave away the store. In conservative terms, this isn't far from Munich, where Chamberlain gave the Sudetenland to Hitler, or Yalta, where FDR gave Eastern Europe to Stalin. 

The officials said the biggest factor in the outcome was the Iraq government's decision to re-schedule provincial elections from October until the end of January, which gave its negotiators strong arguments to drive a hard bargain.

This is elaborated below and just appears to be bad luck for Bush, not part of any conspiracy. 

At the same time in Washington, political pressures generated by Obama's victory, first in the primaries and then in the general election, led Bush to meet the Iraqi demands.

The Bush administration had sought a conventional status of forces agreement that would provide a semi-permanent basis for stationing troops in Iraq, while Obama campaigned on promises to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months of his inauguration.

It's true that Obama promised a 16-month withdrawal, but the article doesn't explain why that changed Bush's negotiating stance. Was the Democratic nominee giving orders to Bush? Obviously not.

Was Bush trying to help McCain? That's a lot more likely. Perhaps Bush was trying to negate the devastating impact of McCain's huge "100 Years in Iraq" gaffe by negotiating a faster timeline. If true, that would be very interesting to know.

The Arabic language version calls the final agreement a withdrawal accord.

Ouch, that really hurts if you're a conservative. And yes, we've noticed, even if the Corporate Media hasn't.

Publicly, the Defense Department defended the agreement on Wednesday, and top officials said they're comfortable with the final document, according to a senior Pentagon aide. "They wouldn't have signed off otherwise."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went to Capitol Hill Wednesday to explain the agreement, which still must be ratified by Iraq's parliament, though not by the U.S. Congress.

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that he was comfortable with the terms of the agreement and that it adequately protects U.S. troops.

This Pentagon approval is very important to remember, in case Bush holdovers in the Pentagon try to sabotage President Obama when he implements the agreement by withdrawing U.S. forces over the next couple of years.

The White House defended what it called a "mutually agreed to agreement." Spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "We asked for some things that we didn't get, they asked for some things that they didn't get. And we met them somewhere right in the middle."

Sorry Dana, but even Sarah Palin wouldn't approve the lipstick you're putting on this pig. 

Pentagon officials, however, said the White House made unprecedented concessions. In addition to allowing Iraq to search cargo and mail under some conditions, the deal bars U.S. forces from launching attacks on other countries from Iraqi soil and permits Iraq to prosecute U.S. military contractors, and in some cases perhaps also American troops, under Iraqi law.

Double ouch. Neocons are especially bitter about the ban on attacking other countries, since their whole goal in conquering Iraq was to use it to conquer Iran. 

Both sides began working on the deal in the spring, months before the expiration of the United Nations Security Council resolution that allows U.S. forces to operate in Iraq. At the time, the Iraqi government was feeling empowered by its military success against Shiite militias in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. But Washington adamantly opposed concessions to the Iraqis, said a senior military officer who closely monitored the negotiations.

So what changed? Why did Bush stop adamantly opposing concessions?

The provincial elections, which will reshape Iraq's political map, were then scheduled for October. But around July, the Iraqi government postponed them until January, and Iraqi politicians realized they could not agree to anything less than a full withdrawal and still win the elections.

OK to answer the question above, this would just seem to be simple bad luck for Bush - not something under his control. 

As Iraqis began asking for more conditions, U.S. negotiators wouldn't relent, the officer said.  

Some at the White House blamed an obstinate Pentagon. Pentagon officials said the White House didn't understand what was happening on the ground. "Baghdad looks very different from Washington," the officer told McClatchy. An administration official objected to that characterization, but said "we wasted four or five months."

So who's blaming who? The White House is blaming the Pentagon for being "obstinate," while the Pentagon is blaming the White House for not "understand[ing] what was happening on the ground." Is either view correct, or is it just finger-pointing?

Last month, both sides appeared to agree on a document. However, the Iraqis rejected the document again and demanded the right to search mail and cargo, control airspace and remove any conditions for a withdrawal.

During those months, there were many Corporate Media reports that claimed Iraq had agreed and the deal was done. But all those reports were White House bullshit, as I blogged following each one. If you simply read the Iraqi statements, you knew there was no agreement, especially because Iraq rejected blanket immunity for U.S. contractors and troops as a negation of their sovereignty.

As Obama's chances to be elected president improved, the White House felt it was under more pressure.

Again, this part of the story needs better reporting. Why exactly did Obama's polls affect Bush's position? 

Neither the administration nor the Iraqis wanted to extend the U.N. resolution. "It turned into a very peculiar political predicament," the officer said.

This also needs more reporting. Why was Bush opposed to a U.N. extension after the Russians publicly said they wouldn't block it? 

"There are a lot of safeguards and caveats on things that some are concerned about," said the senior Pentagon aide. "It sounds like a big giveaway but it's not."

On immunity for U.S. troops, I agree - the U.S. will decide whether to turn soldiers over to Iraq, which means it will never happen. But the other giveaways - especially the fixed deadline and the ban on attacking Iraq's neighbors - are definitely Big.

The White House is expected to release an English translation of the agreement as early as Thursday.

Sorry guys, us bloggers scooped you!

With a new day dawning in Washington, D.C., due to the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in American history who looks determined to govern like Lincoln and make changes in that corrupt town, is it possible that Bush administration officials will totally escape the long arm of justice for their roles in high crimes and misdemeanors more damaging than any corruption in our history?

While former Bush political adviser Karl Rove is still in defiance of a Congressional subpoena to testify under oath and still faces an investigation for destroying e-mails and other documents, obstruction of justice and other civil and criminal infractions for his role in turning the Bush Justice Department into a political arm of the White House, the Washington Post company actually pays him money to write a column for Newsweek magazine advising the Republican Party on how to get itself out of the political wilderness. There is something very wrong with this picture....

Read the full story at the permalink below in the the hottest independent news site in the American South by far, The Locust Fork News-Journal: http://www.locustfork.net/

Permalink:
http://blog.locustfork.net/2008/11/20/with-a-new-day-dawning-in-dc-will-...

Yesterday the Bush-Maliki agreement went before the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on international organizations, human rights, and oversight, chaired by Jim McGovern.

There was only one small problem: did the committee actually have a copy of the agreement?

Delahunt also berated the Bush administration for refusing to release an official copy of the agreement to the public.

Perhaps they had a classified version. We got our copy from the Iraq Oil Report.

McGovern seems to be the only Member of Congress familiar with the Constitution, which requires Senate approval of all treaties. He wants to know: is the Bush-Maliki agreement a treaty or not? The Boston Globe reports,

The Bush administration has labeled the pact a "status of forces agreement," which can be implemented without congressional approval.

But here's another small problem: Bush may want to "label" it a SOFA, but the document itself is explicitly not a SOFA! The official title is:

Agreement
Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq
On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq

It is a withdrawal of forces agreement - what rightwingers would call a surrender agreement. The words  "Status of Forces Agreement" appear nowhere in the document.

So if it's not a SOFA, what is it? It's just an agreement between George Bush and the Iraqi Government (assuming it passes Parliament, which isn't so certain).

Here's the question Jim McGovern failed to ask: if it's not a SOFA, what in the Constitution or international law gives our President the power to sign this kind of agreement?

And this isn't just a theoretical question. If it's not a Constitutional agreement, is it enforceable under international law? Or is it not even worth the paper it's (not) printed on?

If the Iraqi parliament approves this agreement, U.S. troops and contractors may have none of the protections they believe they have. They could be prosecuted or sued in Iraqi courts or even other national courts.

These questions are way too important for Jim McGovern and other Democrats in Congress to let themselves to be bamboozled by George Bush.

Update 1: Ben Armbruster rightly notes the Iraqi version of SOFA called a 'withdrawal accord' - but so does the American version.

Update 2: Juan Cole:

McClatchy says that despite official Pentagon support for the agreement, some high DoD officials are dismayed at how much authority the agreement gives away to the Iraqis and blame the White House for being so eager for the agreement that they caved in to Iraqi demands.

Update 3: Other SOFA's are called SOFA's:

• "Agreement ; Between the Parties to the North Atlantic Treaty Regarding the Status of Their Forces". North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, April 1949.
• "Status of Forces Agreement:Concluded Pursuant to Section 323 of The Compact Of Free Association; Free Association between the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands". Joint Committee on Compact Economic Negotiations.
• "Status of Forces Agreements between Timor-Leste and Australia, New Zealand and Portugal" signed prior to the deployment of Operation Astute in East Timor in May 2006. This reference also includes SOFAs signed in 2002 between East Timor and the United Nations and between East Timor and the United States.
• "US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement" [South Korea]
• "US-Japan Status of forces Agreement, 19 January 1960"
• "NATO Status of Forces Agreement"

Which means Bush's "Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq" agreement is not a SOFA.

Moreover, the official policy of the U.S. government on SOFA's says:

The SOFA is usually an integral part of the overall military bases agreement that allows U.S. military forces to operate within the host country.

So where is the military bases agreement with Iraq?

By Dave Lindorff

The ongoing and deepening global economic crisis, to which Barack
Obama owes his presidential election victory, is no small thing, to be
sure. It also presents us on the left with a lot of openings to press
for progressive change.

We saw how the Republican attempt to derail Obama by labeling him a
?socialist? actually backfired?especially when people were reminded
that a fundamental premise of socialism is ?income redistribution,? in
which some of the wealth of the rich is taken away through taxation,
and transferred through federal programs to those who are less wealthy.
Joe the Plumber was outraged, but when most Americans who were having
trouble paying for gas or making their next mortgage payment, or who
were worried that their jobs might be about to vanish, thought about
that for longer than a sound-bite, it turns out that, not surprisingly,
they decided socialism and redistribution didn?t sound like a bad or
scary idea at all.

The same can be said of labor unions. In good times, many Americans
have bought the argument that unions are just out to grab dues payments
from their paychecks. But as job security vanishes and wages languish,
people are waking up to the idea that they are simply expendable
?inputs? to employers, and that a union can help them stand up to
abusive, uncaring management. Republican propaganda about the sanctity
of ?secret ballot? union elections?ironic given the GOP?s simultaneous
assault all over the country on the right to vote?fell on deaf ears.

Government itself, long a dirty word thanks to years of
conservative propaganda, aped and spread through the corporate media,
is coming back into favor, now that people see that they cannot count
on either themselves or their employers to pull them through hard
times. The idea that government can step in with things like extended
unemployment insurance benefits, food stamps, and even renegotiated
mortgages, makes people who once mocked ?big government? view things a
little differently.

But this unprecedented economic crisis also poses dangers.

Because we are so obsessed with the ongoing collapse of the economy
and the gathering storm of debt, unemployment and loss of retirement
savings that it entails, it?s easy for all of us to lose sight of other
crises that demand our urgent attention and action.

Chief among these are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing threat of climate change.

The wars are not going away on their own. The Iraq puppet
government of Nouri al Maliki is close to approving a deadline for the
removal of US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. That is more than
three years from now?nearly as long as the US was involved in World War
II! It?s longer, even, than the absurd 16 months that Obama said it
would take for him to end the US war and occupation of Iraq during his
campaign, which was bad enough. (In the case of Afghanistan, it
represents a decade of war?as long as the Vietnam War!) The danger is
that Obama will allow that status of troops agreement with Iraq to
become his timetable for withdrawal. We have to say ?No!? The Iraq War
must be ended immediately.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, is in a meltdown, and every day that US
forces operate there, the opposition to US occupation grows, simply
strengthening the Taliban. Similarly, the more the US tries to attack
Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in neighboring Pakistan, the more
opposition grows to the US in Pakistan. If we opponents of the war
allow Obama to go ahead with his plans for a larger US military force
in Afghanistan, we will end up with an even bigger and wider war in the
Middle East and Asia, with more terrorist recruits, and with whatever
remains of US funds for important domestic initiatives swallowed up by
the Pentagon and the secret intelligence budget.

Let me put this simply: Nothing progressive that has been proposed
by the Obama campaign can be achieved while the US is engaged in these
two criminal wars. No health care reform, no increase in education
loans, no early childhood education, no public works jobs programs,
Nothing.

And then there is climate change. The Obama campaign promised to
finally end eight years of a new Dark Ages, when government simply
denied science or actively attacked science, and to start taking
serious action to reduce America?s role in spewing out carbon into the
atmosphere. But you don?t hear much about that anymore. That?s because
reducing America?s carbon footprint costs serious money?money for
research into non-carbon energy sources, money for a power transmission
system to serve wind generation farms, money to develop a new
generation of non-polluting vehicles and to rebuild light rail and
inter-city rail systems. And once again, with the economy in a crisis,
and with the two wars sucking up all available tax revenues that aren?t
being given away to banks and Wall Street financial firms and insurance
companies, none of that is going to happen either, unless we demand it.

Meanwhile, while the progressive folks who put their all into the
Obama campaign are reveling in his and their Election Night success,
and are now taking a breather, the forces of darkness that control the
Democratic Party (think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Rahm
Emanuel and the whole Democratic Leadership Council), are grabbing
control of the new administration, filling the incoming Obama cabinet
with carryover hacks from the Clinton administration, even including
the Clintons themselves, and, in some cases, the outgoing Bush
administration).

This is, in other words, no time to sit back and relax, reveling in
the admittedly hard-to-believe prospect of an African-American moving
into the White House. It is a time for action and then more action.

When Barack Obama makes that dramatic walk from his Inauguration
Day speech at the Capitol building to the White House, the streets need
to be lined with protestors holding up signs calling for an immediate
end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When the new Congress tries to vote for a $50 ?billion or
$150-billion bail-out of the US auto industry, we need to be packing
the halls shouting it down. That money should be going only into
development of zero-emission automobiles, and it should be in the form
of voting-share equity in those companies.

Here, for what it?s worth, are my top 10 demands for action by the new Democratic government iin Washington:

1. US forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Immediately! Shift the
funds saved to reconstruction aid for those two countries and to
veterans benefits, with any extra savings going to help fund education
in poor school districts in the US.

2. Slash military spending by closing most or all overseas military
bases, by dramatically reducing nuclear forces to near zero, by
reducing the number of men and women in uniform, and by closing bases
in the US. Savings should go to shoring up the Social Security and
Medicare Trust Fund.

3. Open up the secret intelligence budget, currently running at over
$40 billion a year, and cut it, for starters, by half. Savings should
also go to the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund. (Along the way,
ban all spying on Americans, and revive the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act in full as originally written.)

4. Break up the banking and automobile industry, as well as any
other industry in which any player is so large it is able to extort
money out of the government by threatening that its failure would cause
a national economic crisis. ?Too big to fail? needs to mean ?too big to
be permitted to exist.?

5. Join the Kyoto Treaty, and pledge to immediately begin a campaign
to reduce US carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 or better, 2030.
Establish a crash national research program to develop carbon-free
energy sources, and provide funding for households to convert to
passive geo-thermal heating and cooling systems. Funds can come from
the unused $350-billion portion of the Paulson/Bernacke Wall Street
bailout fund. (Talk about a job-creation program, not to mention a big
whack at imported oil!)

6. Pass the Employer Free Choice Act, requiring employers to
recognize a labor union wherever a majority of the workers have signed
cards saying they want a union, and requiring those employers to
negotiate and reach an initial contract agreement within 90 days, or
under mandatory mediation.

7. Reassert the Constitutionally mandated authority of Congress by
rescinding all Bush/Cheney-era signing statements and executive orders
and declaring them, by Presidental declaration and by Joint Resolution
of the Congress, to have been invalid and unconstitutional.

8. Order the US Justice Department to investigate the actions of the
prior administration and, where crimes are discovered, to prosecute
offenders, up to and including the former president, to the full extent
of the law. This would include obstruction of justice, abuse of power,
commission of war crimes, conspiracy, fraud, bribery, war profiteering
and criminal negligence.

9. Appoint Ralph Nader as new chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, with a powerful mandate take the necessary steps to restore
competition and fairness to the nation?s media. (My pet proposal:
Establish a government loan fund to allow workers at failing newspapers
to buy their publications from the owners and to operate them as
employee-owned enterprises, on a tax-free basis.)

10. Enact a national health care program that provides health
insurance for every person in America. My choice here would be a
single-payer system?essentially an expansion of Medicare to cover
everyone, funded by progressive taxation. Failing that, a system in
which the government has an insurance program operating in competition
with the private sector, should eventually lead to a single-payer plan.
One idea: dispatch a public-citizen commission to Canada to study the
Canadian health system and report back to Congress and the White House
in 90 days.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is ?The Case for Impeachment? (St. Martin?s Press, 2006).
His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net