Status of forces agreement

The memo’s author, Army Col. Timothy R. Reese serves as chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team for Multinational Division-Baghdad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the door for the first time Wednesday to the prospect of a U.S. military presence in Iraq after the December 2011 deadline for troop withdrawal set by last year’s bilateral accord — something President Obama appeared to rule out during a joint appearance on Wednesday.

Usually when a journalist says “this is a thoughtful piece of writing” what s/he means is “this is a well-expressed recapitulation of things I already believe,” but, really, in the straightforward sense, this is a thoughtful piece of writing from a Marine stationed near Fallujah, brought to us by Tom Ricks. As it happens, it [...]

Former Vice President Dick Cheney worries that the U.S. troop withdrawal from urban Iraqi areas might “waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.” Andrew Sullivan writes that he’s really just trying to establish a narrative whereby the Obama administration gets the blame for a war that spirals out of control. [...]

Milestones don’t always mark what they should. Tomorrow all these things are true: there are 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq; procedures and circumstances and contingencies pertain whereby urban security will still be a U.S. mission; there is a U.S. combat mission, by binding diplomatic accord, for an additional 13 months; another year will pass after [...]

Although Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, says it’s already happened, as of Wednesday, U.S. combat forces will officially be out of Iraqi towns and cities. There’s going to be a limited number of U.S. forces allowed into the cities for training, equipping and advisory missions, in accordance with last year’s Status [...]

Alissa J. Rubin has a great story in The New York Times today about a crucial issue in Iraq (which some wags are starting to call the “Forgotten War”): an upcoming referendum that, if passed, would compel the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq within a year, well ahead of the end-of-2011 timetable [...]

Documents obtained by TWI reveal Iraqi linguists working for the U.S. military could be in peril under new disclosure rules fostered by the Status of Forces Agreement.

Granted, the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement has been kind of under the media radar in general. But what’s really gotten no attention, even from obsessives like myself, are the restrictions it places on U.S. military operations in Iraq over the next three years. Consider this vague language in Article 4:

So it’s come to this.
McClatchy’s Leila Fadel reports that Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, is telling the obstinate Maliki government that unless it signs a Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. before the end of the year, the U.S. is going to leave Iraq with no money, no security and [...]