McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday that all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by 2011 and there would be no security agreement between the United States and Iraq without an unconditional timetable for withdrawal. This was a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which insists the timing for troop departure would be based on conditions on the ground.
“No pact or an agreement should be set without being based on full sovereignty, national common interests, and no foreign soldier should remain on Iraqi land, and there should be a specific deadline and it should not be open,” Maliki told a meeting of tribal leaders in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
His comments appeared to be an attempt to extract further concessions from U.S. officials, less than a week after both sides said they had agreed to remove all U.S. combat troops by the end of 2011, if the security situation remained relatively stable, but leave other U.S. forces in place. The U.S. plan is to leave as many as 40,000 troops to continue to assist Iraq in training, logistics and intelligence for an undefined period.
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