Shiite, Kurdish – some Sunni votes could help pass security deal – WSJ

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: In its first commentary on Sunday’s Iraqi government approval on the security deal between Baghdad and Washington, the Wall Street Journal newspaper said the votes of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) the Kurdistan Alliance (KA) and some Sunni blocs could offer the support the deal would need to pass. An Iraqi government spokesman says the country’s cabinet has approved a security pact with the U.S. that will allow American forces to stay in Iraq for three years after their United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year. Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all 27 cabinet ministers present in Sunday’s meeting, in addition to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, voted in favor of the pact. The cabinet has 37 members, and it is not immediately clear why some ministers stayed away. Several of them are believed to be traveling abroad. The agreement will then be forwarded to the parliament, which may take up the matter on Monday. Approval by 51% of the 275-member parliament is necessary before the pact can be signed by the U.S. and Iraq. To show his support for the deal, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to give a speech on Monday to explain why the agreement is good for Iraq. The two major parties in parliament, the UIA and the KA, already have enough votes on their own to approve the agreement, said Shiite lawmaker Sami al-Askary, who is also an adviser to Maliki. But the Iraqi government wants a broad consensus on the deal, and both the U.S. and Iraq have been lobbying smaller blocs headed by Sunni politicians and others to approve the pact. Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is head of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, recently had been withholding his support for the deal because of a U.S. raid in Fallujah that killed a party member last month. But his opposition may be thawing, according to a member of the Islamic Party, and other members of the Iraqi Accord Front, an umbrella group for Sunni political parties, support the deal. “U.S. troops will have to leave if we don’t finish this agreement and that would be very bad for security,” said Shabah Abussi, an Accord Front lawmaker. “If there is political consensus, we will not say no to it.” Time is running out to conclude the pact, which has faced numerous setbacks since negotiations began in earnest in March. Because of major Muslim holidays in December, Iraqi lawmakers would need to approve a deal by the end of this month, although parliament could delay its break by holding emergency sessions. The vote on the pact is expected to be held on Nov. 24, the last day of the current parliament session. The substantive points of the deal do not change under recently accepted amendments by the U.S., which helped both sides agree on a final draft. The pact still contains clauses that state U.S. troops would leave Iraq by the end of 2011, and American soldiers would leave cities by the end of June 2009. The pact also still states that U.S. soldiers who commit certain violent crimes while off base and off duty could be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. Instead, the changes requested by Iraq were aimed at giving Iraqi political leaders a degree of cover to answer opponents, according to people familiar with the matter. For example, the U.S. agreed to delete a paragraph that stated the Iraqi government could ask U.S. troops to stay beyond the 2011 to train and support Iraqi security forces. A clause that states either party can request to shorten or extend the June 2009 withdrawal date from cities was also deleted. Both clauses had caused confusion and protest among some Iraqi officials, who saw it as a way for the U.S. troops to stay permanently. In practice, however, the Iraqi government can still ask U.S. troops to stay beyond those dates and several Iraqi officials privately acknowledge that they will likely have to do so. While there have