WASHINGTON, 25 January 2008 — Leading Democratic presidential candidates and their colleagues on Capitol Hill have attacked a White House plan to establish a new, long-term security agreement with the Iraqi government.
They insist the Bush Administration is trying to lock in a lasting US military presence in Iraq before the next president takes office.
President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki issued the joint letter last November.
The "Declaration of Principles" has been characterized by administration officials as a mutual "expression of friendship."
Democrats' suspicions were augmented in recent weeks when comments from President Bush and from senior Iraqi officials suggested that a significant US troop presence in Iraq could endure for years.
During his recent trip to the Middle East, Bush spoke of how "long-term success will require active US engagement that outlasts my presidency." And when administration officials describe the agreement, their language is vague.
The president recently spoke of an "enduring relationship."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talks about "a relationship with Iraq for the long term."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined "a mutually agreed arrangement whereby we have a long and enduring presence."
Among the top critics is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who has used the past two Democratic presidential debates to attack President Bush for his effort. On Monday in South Carolina, she said Bush "is trying to bind the United States government and his successor to his failed policy."
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and other Democratic lawmakers are also focusing on the administration's plans for a long-term commitment to Iraq, after gaining little traction for their efforts to force a faster withdrawal of US combat troops there.
The "Declaration of Principles" includes language that seems run-of-the-mill. The United States will help get Iraq into the World Trade Organization. The two countries will engage in scientific and cultural exchanges.
But it also includes a provision that promises to maintain the stability of Iraq's government from "internal and external threats." It is this sentence is raising alarms for some US lawmakers.
Any such agreement would be considered a treaty by many legal experts. And under the US Constitution, treaties have to be ratified by Congress. Sen. Joseph R. Biden, D-Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, recently wrote a letter to Bush expressing concern that the agreement could "mire us in an Iraqi civil war indefinitely."
Biden and other lawmakers say they will try to block the president from signing such an agreement with the Iraqi government. If the White House ignores the measures, Biden and others say they could bring it all the way to the Supreme Court.
For their part, Iraqi leaders aren't mincing words.
They call the upcoming agreement a treaty. At a recent press conference in Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called it a "long-term treaty."
Yet nearly half of Iraq's elected members of Parliament have signed a letter demanding a full US military withdrawal from Iraq within the next two years.
Also in Iraq, the State Department refused again Wednesday to predict when its largest-in-the-world embassy will be ready to open in Baghdad.
The project was set to be completed last fall at a cost of more than $700 million, but various issues, including concern over fire detection and control, have forced the delay in opening.
"We have yet to issue a certificate of occupancy for the building," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said at his midday briefing. "That's the last step before people can start to move in."
