{"id":3766,"date":"2008-06-09T14:47:13","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T13:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/cheney-enrages-iraqis-over-security-deal\/3766\/"},"modified":"2008-06-09T14:47:13","modified_gmt":"2008-06-09T13:47:13","slug":"cheney-enrages-iraqis-over-security-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/cheney-enrages-iraqis-over-security-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"3\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/cheney1.jpg\" hspace=\"3\" alt=\"cheney1.jpg\" title=\"cheney1.jpg\" \/>By <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/leupp06062008.html\">GARY LEUPP<\/a> | Dick Cheney wants the Iraqi government installed by the U.S. occupation to sign a \u201csecurity pact\u201d with Washington by the end of July. (The pact, including a status-of-forces agreement, would be signed by the U.S. president but not constitute a treaty requiring Congressional approval.) U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has been feverishly struggling to meet the deadline and to commit the next administration to the agreement\u2019s terms. But that may be a tall order. Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki says negotiations are only in a beginning stage; public opinion is opposed to the pact based on leaked information about its content; and a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament have endorsed a letter to the U.S. government demanding U.S. withdrawal as the condition for \u201cany commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Few Americans are familiar with the proposed treaty. If they were, they might be shocked at its provisions, ashamed about its naked sadism. It: <\/font><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">grants the U.S. long-term rights to maintain over 50 military bases in their California-sized country<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">allows the U.S. to strike any other country from within Iraqi territory without the permission of the Iraqi government <\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">allows the U.S. to conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting with the local government<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">allows U.S. forces to arrest any Iraqi without consulting with Iraqi authorities <\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">extends to U.S. troops and contracters immunity from Iraqi law<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">gives U.S. forces control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft.<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">places the Iraqi Defense, Interior and National Security ministries, under American supervision for ten years <\/font><\/li>\n<li><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">gives the U.S. responsibility for Iraqi armament contracts for ten years<\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Humiliating, right? The sort of conditions most Americans can\u2019t imagine themselves accepting from a foreign occupying power.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">What self-respecting people would ever agree to such provisions? Especially after their country\u2019s been illegally invaded and occupied, on the basis of lies. Perhaps a million have been killed by the invaders and the civil strife they\u2019ve unleashed. Two million have been driven into foreign exile, two million internally displaced. Thousands have been humiliated, terrified and tortured by the invaders. Millions\u2019 electrical and water supply still lags behind Saddam-era levels. Millions\u2019 personal security and enjoyment of human rights has deteriorated as a result of the invasion. Why should their leaders sign such an agreement? <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">No doubt some key figures in the Bush administration have asked themselves that, and here\u2019s what they come up with. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds $ 50 billion of Iraq\u2019s foreign exchange reserves as a result of the UN sanctions dating back to the first Gulf War. These include virtually all oil revenues that under UN mandate must be placed in the Development Fund for Iraq \u201ccontrolled\u201d by the Iraqi government. $ 20 billion of this is owed to plaintiffs who\u2019ve won court judgments against Iraq, but a presidential order gives the account legal immunity. Bush can threaten to remove the immunity and wipe out 40% of Iraq\u2019s foreign reselves if Baghdad doesn\u2019t cooperate. At the same time, Bush can tell al-Maliki that if Iraq enters into a \u2018strategic relationship\u201d with the U.S., the U.S. will arrange for Iraq to finally escape those lingering UN \u201cChapter Seven\u201d sanctions. Perhaps Bush and Cheney are confidant that this carrot and stick\u201d approach will force the Iraqi government to sign the deal.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">But Iranian political leader Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani hardly exaggerates in saying the proposed deal is designed \u201cto turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans\u201d and to create \u201ca permanent occupation.\u201d Many Iraqis use similar language. \u00a0\u201cThe agreement wants to put an American in each house,\u201d claimed a supporter of Shiite cleric and nationalist firebrand Mutada al-Sadr. \u201cThis agreement is poison mixed in poison, not poison in honey because there is no honey at all.\u201d \u201cWhy,\u201d he asks, \u201cdo they want to break the backbone of Iraq?\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The mainstream Shiite cleric and politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC; formerly the Supreme Council for the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Islamic_Revolution\" title=\"Islamic Revolution\">Islamic Revolution<\/a> in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Iraq\" title=\"Iraq\">Iraq<\/a> or SCIRI), \u00a0agrees that the proposed agreement would \u201cviolate Iraq&#8217;s national sovereignty.\u201d He claims a \u201cnational consensus\u201d against it has developed. (President Bush in December 2006 met with al-Hakim, calling his \u201cone of the distinguished leaders of a free Iraq,\u201d and he is sometimes mentioned as Washington\u2019s first choice for prime minister if al-Maliki doesn\u2019t adequately put out. So his opposition is especially significant.) <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Al-Hakim is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most widely respected Shiite cleric in 60% Shiite Iraq. The ayatollah is thought to oppose the pact but has not yet made a pronouncement about it. Meanwhile the Association of Muslim Scholars, the largest Sunni political group in the parliament, warns that the pact paves the way for &#8220;military, economic and cultural domination\u201d by the Americans.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.star-telegram.com\/279\/story\/673216.html\"><\/a><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Al-Sadr\u2019s followers staged rallies around the country after prayers last Friday and plan to continue weekly peaceful demonstrations demanding that the Baghdad government hold a national referendum on the security treaty issue. The U.S. opposes such a referendum, aware that pact opponents would surely win.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">So Al-Maliki is between a rock and a hard place. He can sign the agreement and continue to receive U.S. support, strengthening the popular perception that he is a U.S. puppet. Or he can submit to the referendum demand, alienating and embarrassing his country\u2019s invaders, revealing to the world the depth of Iraqi antipathy to the occupation. That way he loses U.S. support. Either way he seems headed towards the door.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">In January 2007 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress that if al-Maliki didn\u2019t cooperate with U.S. forces in suppressing Shiite militias in Baghdad, \u201che has to face is the possibility that he&#8217;ll lose his job.\u201d At the same time U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and President Bush were both threatening to end support for al-Maliki if he didn\u2019t \u201cfollow through on his promises\u201d to the U.S. In August 2007, after al-Maliki publicly praised Iran for its \u201cconstructive role\u201d in Iraq, Bush warned him. \u201cMy message to him,\u201d he told the press, \u201cis, when we catch you playing a non-constructive role, there will be a price to pay.&#8221;<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">For his part al-Maliki has indicated there are limits to his servility. He sent forces against al-Sadr\u2019s Mahdi Army in Baghdad in February of this year, but they fought poorly and had to be saved from embarrassment by the mediation of a commander of Iran\u2019s vilified Quds Force friendly with both al-Sadr and al-Maliki. He has refused to break his strong ties with the Iranian government and politely asked the U.S. to leave his country out of its quarrel with Iran. He does not seem wedded to his post or determined to retain it at any cost; \u201cI wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term,\u201d he told the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> in January 2007. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to take this position. I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again.\u201d Doesn\u2019t sound like a man who wants to go down in history as the man who sold Iraq to the Americans in the summer of 2008. Likely successor Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim has opposed the deal so far. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Meanwhile, there\u2019s this other Iraqi item on Cheney\u2019s urgent to-do list: the passage of the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law by the Iraqi Parliament. This was drafted by BearingPoint (a McLean, Virginia-based management consulting provider listed by the Center for Corporate Policy as the number 2 top war profiteer of 2004) in February 2006 and then presented to the newly-appointed Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani. Shahristani then met in Washington DC with representatives of Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips to get their comments on the draft. He promised the International Monetary Fund that the Iraqi parliament would pass the law by the end of 2006, but its members hadn\u2019t even seen the 33-page draft law yet. Months earlier an Oil Ministry official had said that Iraqi civil society and the general public would not be consulted at all on this matter.<\/font><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">A secret appendix to the draft law, according to London-based Iraqi political analyst Munir Chalabi, \u201cwill decide which oil fields will be allocated to the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC) and which of the existing fields will be allocated to the IOCs [international oil companies]. The appendices will determine if 10% or <em>possibly up to 80% of these major oil fields<\/em> will be given to the IOCs.\u201d This, in other words, is another national humiliation in the offing. As six women Nobel Peace Prize recipients wrote in September 2007, it \u201cwould transform Iraq\u2019s oil industry from a nationalized model to a commercial model that is much more open to U.S. corporate control. Its provisions allow much (if not most) of Iraq\u2019s oil revenues to flow out of Iraq and into the pockets of international oil companies.\u201d<\/font><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\"><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">It is one of those \u201cbench marks\u201d the Bush administration has imposed on Iraq, with Congressional support, as conditions for U.S. withdrawal, but even the most recent revised version, hammered out between Kurdish representatives and the Maliki cabinet, faces tough political opposition. Cheney was hoping this would be a done deal&#8212;done quickly on the sly&#8212;as of last summer. But al-Maliki still hasn\u2019t delivered, and as <a href=\"http:\/\/fpc.state.gov\/documents\/organization\/104724.pdf\">a State Department report<\/a> to Congress in April 2008 notes, labor opposition is formidable: \u201cThe 26,000 member Iraq Federation of Oil Unions has voiced its members\u2019 strong opposition to the current draft of the hydrocarbon framework legislation and has demonstrated a capacity to disrupt oil production and refinery operations with strikes.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/font><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Last year union chief Subhi al-Badri declared, \u201cThis law cancels the great achievements of the Iraq people. If the Iraqi Parliament approves this law, we will resort to mutiny. This law is a bomb that may kill everyone. Iraqi oil. \u2026 belongs to all future generations.\u201d Even the Iraqi minister of planning and development, Ali Baban, has vowed to \u201cresign one hour after [the] passing [of the] oil and gas draft law.\u201d And the Sadrists of course are bitterly opposed.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Add the globalization of the oil industry to the security treaty provisions listed above. Imagine how Iraqi public opinion will react if Cheney and the neocons succeed in forcing this package of laws through the Iraqi parliament. Everybody knows the \u201creturn of sovereignty\u201d is a sham, and claims of \u201cdemocracy\u201d a cover for continued occupation. The \u201cbenchmark\u201d capitulations the Americans demand add insult to injury, inscribing in law and veneer of multilateralism that which has been seized by brute force. They oblige those under the boot to kiss it.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The Cheney cabal (exuding Islamophobia and contempt for poor and working people everywhere) seems to actually suppose it will be able to win that degree of slavishness, and to celebrate such crowning imperialist triumphs in Iraq, by the end of the Bush term. They also seem to think they can attack Iran, expanding the \u201cLong War\u201d before handing it over to the next administration. But that would mean provoking the outrage of the overwhelming majority of Iranians and Iraqis simultaneously. Seems just too stupid to believe, even from a rational imperialist\u2019s own point of view. But aside from Rep. Dennis Kucinich, few in Congress have made issues of the security treaty, hydrocarbon law, or plans for a strike against Iran. The mainstream media is for the most part unquestioning, subdued, as the Bush administration continues to subject the Muslim world to unbearable provocations.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><strong><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana\">Gary Leupp<\/font><\/strong><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana\"> is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/069102961X\/counterpunchmaga\">Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0520209001\/counterpunchmaga\">Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan<\/a>; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0826460747\/counterpunchmaga\">Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900<\/a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch&#8217;s merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.easycarts.net\/ecarts\/CounterPunch\/CP_Books.html\">Imperial Crusades<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-1\" face=\"Verdana\">He can be reached at: <a href=\"mailto:gleupp@granite.tufts.edu\">gleupp@granite.tufts.edu<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By GARY LEUPP | Dick Cheney wants the Iraqi government installed by the U.S. occupation to sign a \u201csecurity pact\u201d with Washington by the end of July. (The pact, including a status-of-forces agreement, would be signed by the U.S. president but not constitute a treaty requiring Congressional approval.) U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has been feverishly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1616,16],"tags":[38,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-3766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"category-usa-news","8":"category-war-terrorism","9":"tag-iraq","10":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}