Iraq prime minister: Immunity issue scuttled U.S. troop deal
Associated Press ^ | Saturday, October 22, 2011 | Lara Jakes and Rebecca Santana
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday that U.S. troops are leaving Iraq after nearly nine years of war because Baghdad rejected American demands that any U.S. military forces to stay would have to be shielded from prosecution or lawsuits.
The comments by Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, made clear that it was Iraq who refused to let the U.S. military remain under the Americans’ terms.
A day earlier, President Barack Obama had hailed the troops’ withdrawal as the result of his commitment — promised shortly after taking office in 2009 — to end the war that he once described as “dumb.”
“When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible,” al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad. “The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started.”
Nearly 40,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, all of whom will withdraw by Dec. 31 — a deadline set in a 2008 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington.
But continued violence across Iraq, coupled with growing influence by the Shiite power Iran over the government in Baghdad, prompted the Obama administration earlier this year to push to keep thousands of U.S. troops here for years to come. The two nations negotiated for months over whether U.S. forces should stay — a politically delicate issue for Obama and al-Maliki, both of whom faced widespread opposition from their respective publics to continue a war that was never popular in either nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so now we learn the truth. Fuck Obama and EVERYONE who plans on voting for this piece of garbage again.
