US Press Ignores Iraqi Parliament's Resolution for US

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit

[The mainstream press has largely ignored the Iraqi Parliament's
passage on June 5 of a binding resolution backing a call for an end to
the US occupation.  It was covered by The Washington Post when it was
still in DRAFT Form a month ago (May 11, 2007) -- and buried on page
A12. When the bill was actually passed (by both Sunni and Shiite
lawmakers) on June 5, the only US coverage we saw and distributed was
published by Alternet.

See: "Breaking News: Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution to
Force End of Occupation" - June 5, 2007:
http://www.counterpunch.org/apa06072007.html

Here is the Washington Post story from May 11 on the lawmakers who
signed onto the draft version of what became the binding resolution:

The Washington Post - May 11, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR200...

Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, May 10 -- A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have
signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal
of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The
development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq's legislators
and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush
administration and its critics in Congress.

The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like
what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require
the Iraqi government to secure parliament's approval before any further
extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which
expires at the end of 2007.

"We haven't asked for the immediate withdrawal of multinational forces;
we asked that we should build our security forces and make them
qualified, and at that point there would be a withdrawal," said Bahaa
al-Araji, a member of parliament allied with the anti-American Shiite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters drafted the bill. "But no one
can accept the occupation of his country."

In Iraq and the United States, there is deepening frustration among
lawmakers and the public over President Bush's troop buildup, a policy
that has yet to prevent widespread killing in Iraq. At the same time,
Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are dispatching their
emissaries in an urgent transatlantic gambit to shore up support.

Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, was in Washington
this week to ask Democratic members of Congress to have patience with
the "surge" and not abandon Iraq at such a precarious time. On
Wednesday, Vice President Cheney landed in Baghdad to press the
government to act quickly on a host of divisive political issues that
the Bush administration deems threatening to long-term stability.

On his second day in Iraq, Cheney spoke to U.S. soldiers at a base near
Tikrit about the difficulties they face each day. "We are here, above
all, because the terrorists who have declared war on America and other
free nations have made Iraq the central front in that war," he said,
according to a transcript of his remarks. He added: "The United States,
also, has made a decision: As the prime target of a global war against
terror, we will stay on the offensive. We will not sit back and wait to
be hit again."

But as in the United States, Iraq's lawmakers are moving further away
from the views of the government, particularly on the basic issue of
the American presence in their country. The draft bill is being
championed by a 30-member bloc loyal to Sadr, but it has also gained
support from some other Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish legislators. So far,
at least 138 lawmakers have signed the proposed legislation, the
slimmest possible majority in the 275-member parliament, according to
Araji. Nasar al-Rubaie, another Sadr loyalist, told the Associated
Press that the proposal had 144 signatures.

"We think that America committed a grave injustice against the Iraqi
people and against the glorious history of Iraq when they destroyed our
institutions and then rebuilt them in the wrong way," said Hussein
al-Falluji, a lawmaker from the largest Sunni coalition in parliament
and a supporter of the timetable proposal.

Several legislators, including those loyal to Maliki, said they doubted
that the effort would succeed at a time when Iraqi troops still rely
heavily on U.S. firepower. The most prominent political parties in Iraq
- -- such as Maliki's Dawa party; the Shiite group known as the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; the Iraqi Islamic Party, a
leading Sunni group; and prominent Kurdish factions -- appear to oppose
setting specific dates for withdrawal. And even if such dates were
fixed, it is unclear whether that would compel the United States to
obey them.

"I don't think it's a good idea," said Hachim al-Hassani, a secular
Sunni from the Iraqi National List and a former speaker of parliament.
"Unless we complete building our forces so we are capable of defending
the country and bringing security to the country, then we are not ready
for something like this. A premature withdrawal could lead to a civil
war in Iraq."

Ali al-Adeeb, a lawmaker from the Dawa party and an aide to Maliki,
said any timetable for American withdrawal should be accompanied by a
timetable for training and equipping the Iraqi security forces.

"Pressures are increasing here in Iraq and also in the States for the
withdrawal of the multinational forces. . . . and it seems that keeping
these forces here indefinitely won't solve the problems in Iraq," he
said. "But it should happen gradually, so that Iraqi forces can handle
the security tasks."

There was also some disagreement over the terms of proposed timetable
legislation. Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman told the Associated Press
he had agreed to back the measure on the condition that it included an
accompanying timeline for the buildup of Iraqi forces, but this was not
included in the draft. Othman called the omission a "deception."

Hassan al-Shimmari, a Shiite who leads the Fadhila Party in parliament,
also signed the petition and had similar concerns.

"We can all see that it's not possible for the American troops to
leave, and that withdrawing right now would lead to a disaster in Iraq,
because the Iraqi security forces are still very weak, and they are
still controlled by their sectarian and factional loyalties," he said.

The violence driven by such sectarian rifts continued Thursday, as the
insurgent group known as the Islamic State of Iraq, a coalition that
includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, posted a video on the Internet that purports
to show the killing of nine Iraqi police and army officers. The
one-minute video shows the uniformed and blindfolded men kneeling in a
row on a patch of dirt as a black-masked gunman shoots them rapidly in
the head, one after another, saying "God is great" with each execution.
The insurgents apparently demanded the release of prisoners before
shooting the men, according to a video posted earlier.

The gruesome scene resembles a video posted April 19, also by the
Islamic State of Iraq, showing the apparent execution of 20 Iraqi
soldiers and police officers.

On Thursday, the U.S. military said one Marine had been killed Tuesday
during fighting in Anbar province in western Iraq. Two other U.S.
soldiers died Thursday from gunshot wounds, one in Baghdad and the
other in Diwaniyah, south of the capital.

[Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and Waleed Saffar contributed to
this report.]

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