In the City: Iraq Won’t Extend SOFA Deadlines?

For the past several weeks, the U.S. military command in Iraq has repeatedly floated the prospect of asking the Iraqi government to extend the deadline for ending U.S. combat operations in certain Iraqi cities beyond the June 30 date stipulated in the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. It made me wonder if the decision — which the U.S. command always described as one for the Iraqis to make — was already made. But according to Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki isn’t interested.

“These dates cannot be extended, and this is consistent with the transfer and handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces,” Dabbagh said in a statement.

Iraqi government statements are occasionally walked back, so let’s wait and see if this one is. But the fact that Dabbagh put out a statement shooting down Gen. Raymond Odierno’s trial balloon indicates that Maliki thinks that extending the deadlines would provoke more chaos than allowing U.S. forces more time to conduct combat operations would suppress.