Iraq-US security pact triggers Iraqi opposition's discontent

Iraq's cabinet approved a pact that will let U.S. troops stay in the country until 2011, setting a final date to end a military presence that began with the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

• "The total withdrawal will be completed by Dec. 31, 2011. This date is specific and final,"  Iraqi cabinet spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said of the pact, supported by 27 of 28 cabinet members.
• Dabbagh said major factions in parliament had indicated their support but the Iraqi opposition parliamentary bloc has not yet said its last word.
• The draft would place the U.S. force in Iraq — which now numbers about 150,000 — under the authority of the Iraqi government for the first time, replacing a mandate enacted by the UN Security Council after the U.S. invasion.
• Followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are the only big group in parliament openly hostile to the pact.
• "Today the cabinet has agreed to put Iraq under the mandate of the American occupation forces. It is a deeply regrettable and sorrowful thing," Ahmed al-Masoudy, spokesman for Sadr's bloc in parliament, told reporters.
• "We are calling upon the Iraqi people to stage massive demonstrations and sit-ins to stop this farce," he said.
• In another reaction, the Syrian information minister, Mohsen Bilal today hit out in Damascus at the Iraqi-US security deal saying it "legalizes" the American military presence in Iraq.
• The security pact "rewards the US occupier by giving it undue rights over the Iraqi people and their neighbours", he hammered.
• The Syrian official reaffirmed his country's call for the early pull out of US forces from Iraq, stressing that the country's full sovereignty and its people's dignity should be respected.
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