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Iraq's Sistani has concerns about U.S. pact: source
Reuters ^

Posted on 11/29/2008 12:59:09 PM PST by WilliamReading

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq's influential Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has reservations about a pact allowing U.S. troops to stay for three more years, but politicians must decide its value, a source said on Saturday.

Iraq's parliament passed a law approving the long-awaited security pact on Thursday, paving the way for U.S. forces to withdraw by the end of 2011 and taking the country a step closer to full sovereignty. They agreed it should be put to a national referendum by the end of July next year.

The revered cleric's acceptance of the pact is crucial for it to be accepted by Iraq's mostly Shi'ite population, many of whom are at best ambivalent about the continuing presence of U.S. troops on their soil.

"In this agreement there are unsatisfactory things ... Therefore he declares his reservations. His reservations do not mean rejection, but neither does that mean absolute acceptance," a source close to Sistani's office told Reuters.

Sistani had signaled the week before the vote that he would abstain from judging the pact and leave it to lawmakers to decide its fate, on two conditions: that it does not violate Iraq's sovereignty and that it gets consensus from all of its communities. Shi'ites have eagerly awaited his final verdict.

The source said Sistani would not make public which parts of the pact he had concerns about. But he said Sistani wanted politicians to decide "whether the positive aspects outweigh the negative."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mohammedanism; trollboy; zotbait
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To: E. Cartman

“Let’s hope so.”

Amen to that!


61 posted on 11/29/2008 6:44:32 PM PST by this is my country
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To: WilliamReading; Allegra
Why do we assume the Arabs want democracy or understand it?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Do you understand it?

When is the last time you lived under a despot or visited a nation with one in place?

You would know why democracy in Iraq, if you had done.

But of course the arm chair is a much more comfortable alternative.

62 posted on 11/29/2008 9:23:35 PM PST by Candor7 (Fascism? All it takes is for good men to say nothing, ( member NRA)
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To: kristinn; WilliamReading

Mr. Reading seems to be a 9/10/2001 demagogue. Much like after 6/7/41 - and that heinous enemy attack on our home - the ideological isolationists reveal themselves as fools and moral cowards.


63 posted on 11/30/2008 4:01:46 AM PST by MNSlim
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