BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Presidential Council yesterday approved a security pact that sets out a three-year time frame for US troops to leave, a spokesman said, the final step for the agreement to replace a UN mandate that expires on Dec. 31.
As the final legal hurdle to the deal was cleared, American soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike faced another round of deadly bombings by insurgents trying to chip away at recent security gains.
Two suicide bombers in explosives-laden trucks took aim at police stations in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah yesterday, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 100, Iraqi officials said.
A suicide car bomber also killed two US soldiers and wounded nine Iraqi civilians near a checkpoint in Mosul, the US military said.
Iraq’s Parliament signed off on the deal last week following months of tough talks between US and Iraqi negotiators that at times seemed on the point of collapse. The entire process has been fraught with hardscrabble deal-making between ethnic and sectarian groups.
In Washington, the White House welcomed the decision.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said the Iraqi Presidential Council’s approval sets a path for American troops to come home and called the agreement a “remarkable achievement for both countries.”
Under the deal, which goes into effect Jan. 1, US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 and the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012. But the agreement includes the caveat that it should go before voters in a referendum by the end of July — when the deal will already be in effect.
That was a concession to Iraqi demands and means the agreement could be rejected next year if, for example, anti-US anger builds and demands for an immediate withdrawal grow. By that time, however, American troops will likely have left urban areas and will be a less intrusive presence.
President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies Tariq Al-Hashemi and Adel Abdul Mahdi signed the accord at their headquarters in Baghdad, said council spokesman Nasser Al-Ani.
Iraq also will gain strict oversight over the nearly 150,000 American troops now on the ground, representing a step toward full sovereignty for Iraq and a shift from the sense of frustration and humiliation that many Iraqis feel at the presence of American troops on their soil for so many years.
Followers of Iraqi leader Moqtada Sadr opposed the measure, demanding an immediate withdrawal.
The US military has warned that the security gains of the past year remain fragile.
In Fallujah, the apparently coordinated blasts struck within minutes of each other outside the concrete barriers surrounding two police stations in different sections of Fallujah.
An Al-Qaeda front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on a website used by insurgents.
A senior Iraqi police officer in Fallujah said one of the blasts leveled a police station and damaged several nearby houses. A police station in central Fallujah was also struck, he said.
“I was drinking tea in my house when a big explosion took place. It was like an earthquake,” said Saad Ibrahim, a 34-year-old mechanic who lives near one of the police stations. “I could hear the cry of a child trapped in a house ... We tried to help him, but the police and firefighters arrived and asked us to leave the area.”
The US military said initial reports showed that 13 people were wounded, including nine Iraqi policemen, when two car bombs exploded in Fallujah. Conflicting casualty tolls are common in the chaotic aftermath of such attacks. Fallujah, 65 km west of Baghdad, is in Anbar province and saw some of the fiercest fighting during the war before local tribal leaders joined forces with the Americans against Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The city, which is largely sealed off by checkpoints, has been relatively peaceful in recent months but attacks have continued. Northeast of Baghdad, a bomb left on a parked motorcycle exploded near a restaurant in Baquba, killing three people, according to police at the security headquarters for the surrounding Diyala province.
In a separate development, an unmanned US surveillance plane crashed on the runway at the Balad Air Base, 80 km north of Baghdad, according to a statement by the US Air Force.
It said the MQ-1 Predator assigned to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing crashed about 7:30 a.m. yesterday, but the extent of the damage was unknown.
