Iraqi cabinet campaigning for security pact
Premier warns country is not ready to take full security responsibility

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 24, 2008

BAGHDAD — Pirates, foreign attacks, a plummeting economy. Iraqi government ministers are cataloguing warnings about the future if lawmakers reject the proposed security pact with the U.S.

It’s all part of a campaign by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to rally support for the agreement going into parliament’s crucial vote Wednesday on the deal that would keep American troops in Iraq through 2011.

The U.S. presence is now permitted by a U.N. resolution, but it expires Dec. 31 and the proposed security deal is meant to replace it.

"If a renewal (of the U.N. mandate) is not requested, the alternative will be the immediate withdrawal from Iraqi territory and that might not be in the interest of Iraq at present,” al-Maliki said Sunday after meeting with members of the government’s Shiite alliance.

That outcome, he said, would leave Iraq’s security forces with full responsibility for security at a time when their capabilities are not yet up to the task.

The comment appeared designed to unsettle lawmakers who oppose the pact and get them to change their minds.

However, it is improbable the prime minister would abandon the idea of a renewal of the U.N. mandate and push out the Americans, given his worries about security.

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