Iraq Parliament To Decide Future US Troop Presence

Iraq's parliament will vote on Wednesday on a pact that sets a deadline for the withdrawal of the U.S. military forces that ousted former dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, but which is opposed by some political groups.

The deal signed with the United States last week would require the roughly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to leave by the end of 2011, a condition Washington agreed to only after months of painstaking negotiations.

Iraqi leaders consider that to be a major victory, after the administration of outgoing President George W. Bush had said it would not accept a fixed timetable.

Parliament's approval, which appeared likely but was not guaranteed, is the last big hurdle to the pact's ratification.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says the pact was Iraq's best hope for restoring its sovereignty whilst avoiding a return to the sectarian bloodshed of recent years, when militias from the majority Shi'ites battled once dominant Sunnis who initially aligned themselves with al Qaeda fighters.

But it faces opposition in the house from several factions.

Followers of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr oppose any agreement with a force they see as occupiers. Last Friday a demonstration against the pact drew thousands.

Other political factions, including the main Sunni Arab bloc, say they have reservations about it and have presented lists of demands they want met before they can approve it. Iraq's leaders have been in frantic last-minute talks for days to try to reach an agreement with sceptical factions.

Cabinet warned this week that a failure to back it could again unleash the violence that threatened to tear Iraq apart.

BOOST TO MALIKI

If approved, the deal gives Iraq formal authority over the U.S. presence for the first time, replacing a U.N. security council mandate. U.S. troops must quit Iraqi towns and villages by the middle of next year, then leave Iraq within three years.

That will greatly strengthen the hand of Maliki and his Shi'ite-led government, which will continue to enjoy the benefits of U.S. military backing whilst scoring nationalist points for being the ones who ushered it out.

"It would take U.S.-Iraqi relations exactly in the direction Maliki wants: a gradual drawdown that would focus on the training of Iraqi security forces and...would be slow enough to give him a maximum of possibility for staying in power," said Reidar Visser, an Iraq expert and editor of the www.historiae.org website.

Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, signalled last week he would leave it to lawmakers to decide the fate of the pact, but he said it needed wide backing from across Iraq's sectarian and political divides.

Large Shi'ite and Kurdish parties that support Maliki may have enough votes to pass it but to get a broad consensus they need to win over Sunni Arabs and smaller parties worried about the power it bestows on Maliki's Islamist Shi'ite alliance.

Even if the pact is approved, Iraq's path to peace is not assured.

Violence has fallen to lows not seen since after the invasion but militants still carry out devastating attacks. Nineteen people died in bomb attacks across Baghdad on Monday.

"Governmental institutions and the security apparatus remain weak and stability is fragile," Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters.

"For the U.S., the hope is to get out of Iraq and leave behind a regime that can survive and hold up against internal and external enemies ... Iraq is still far from this."