Iraqi Cabinet Approves Security Pact With U.S.
Members of Iraq’s 37-member cabinet voted on Sunday to approve a security agreement setting conditions for the U.S. presence in Iraq.
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BAGHDAD — The Iraqi cabinet voted overwhelmingly Sunday to approve the security agreement that sets the conditions for the Americans' continued presence in Iraq from Jan. 1 until the end of 2011.
All but one of the 28 cabinet ministers who attended the two-and-a-half-hour session voted for the agreement and sent it to Parliament for consideration, a huge relief to the United States, which had been in intense negotiations with the Iraqis for nearly a year.
The United Nations Security Council resolution that allows U.S. troops to operate in Iraq expires Dec. 31, and, without an extension of the resolution or a separate agreement with the Iraqis like that approved by the cabinet on Sunday, forces of the U.S.-led coalition would have no legal mandate to operate.
“This is the best available alternative,” the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said shortly after the vote. “We have always said this is not a perfect solution for the Iraqi side and it is not a perfect solution for the American side. But it is a procedure which was forced by circumstances and necessity.
“This is the time after the progress in the security situation to transfer the security file to the Iraqi side, step by step.”