Final Text of Iraq Pact Reveals a US Debacle »

The final draft of the US-Iraq Status of Forces agreement on the US military presence represents an even more crushing defeat for the policy of the George W. Bush administration than previously thought...

...The final draft, dated Oct. 13, not only imposes unambiguous deadlines for withdrawal of US combat troops by 2011 but makes it extremely unlikely that a US non-combat presence will be allowed to remain in Iraq for training and support purposes beyond the 2011 deadline for withdrawal of all US combat forces...

...In the absence of an agreement approved by the Iraqi parliament, US troops in Iraq will probably be confined to their bases once the United Nations mandate expires Dec. 31...

...Bush administration policymakers did not imagine when the negotiations began formally last March that its bargaining position on the issue of the US military presence could have turned out to be so weak in relation with its own "client" regime in Baghdad...

..The final draft confirms the language of the Aug. 6 draft requiring that all US military operations be subject to the approval of the Iraqi government and coordinated with Iraqi authorities through a joint US-Iraqi committee...

...The collapse of the Bush administration's ambitious plan for a long-term US presence in Iraq highlights the degree of unreality that has prevailed among top US officials in both Washington and Baghdad on Iraqi politics. They continued to see the Maliki regime as a client which would cooperate with US aims even after it was clear that Maliki's agenda was sharply at odds with that of the United States.

They also refused to take seriously the opposition to such a presence even among the Shiite clerics who had tolerated it in order to obtain Shiite control over state power.

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