Iraqis condemn US demands for indefinite, widespread occupation

High-level negotiations over the future role of the US military in Iraq have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate, with Iraqi politicians denouncing what they say are US demands to maintain nearly 60 bases in their country indefinitely. Top Iraqi officials are calling for a radical reduction of the US military's role after the UN mandate authorizing its presence expires at the end of this year. "The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq," said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament's foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, US troops. We don't need you here anymore.' " In Iraq, the willingness to consider calling for the departure of American troops represents a major shift for members of the US-backed government. Maliki this week visited Iran, where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, urged him to reject any long-term security arrangements with the United States. US officials have refused to publicly discuss details of the status of forces agreement negotiations between the US and Iraq. But Iraqi politicians have become more open in their descriptions of the talks, stoking popular anger at American demands that Iraqis across the political spectrum view as a form of continued occupation. "What the US wants is to take the current status quo and try to regulate it in a new agreement. And what we want is greater respect for Iraqi sovereignty," said Haider al-Abadi, a parliament member from Maliki's Dawa party. "Signing the agreement would mean that the Iraqi government had given up its sovereignty by its own consent. And that will never happen." Abadi and other Iraqi officials said that contrary assertions by the US that the motive is to promote sovereignty are undercut by the US request to maintain 58 long-term bases in Iraq. The Americans originally pushed for more than 200 facilities across the country, according to Hadi al-Amiri, a powerful lawmaker who is the head of the Badr Organization, the former armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the country's largest Shiite political party. Iraqi officials said the US government also demanded the continuation of several current policies: authority to detain and hold Iraqis without turning them over to the Iraqi judicial system, immunity from Iraqi prosecution for both US troops and private contractors, and the prerogative for US forces to conduct operations without approval from the Iraqi government. The American negotiators also called for continued control over Iraqi airspace and the right to refuel planes in the air, according to Askari, positions he said added to concerns that the United States was preparing to use Iraq as a base to attack Iran. "We rejected the whole thing from the beginning," said Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a senior lawmaker from the Supreme Council. "In my point of view, it would just be a new occupation with an Iraqi signature." The Iraqi government is also upset because it wants the United Nations to lift its Chapter 7 designation of Iraq as a threat to international security, which dates from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Iraqi officials said the United States will not commit to supporting the removal of the label -- a position the Iraqis call an inappropriate bargaining tactic. US negotiators also said the agreements would not obligate the American military to protect Iraq from foreign aggression, Iraqi officials said, a promise they believe was a fundamental part of a declaration of principles signed by Bush and Maliki last winter. "The prime minister is not happy about this," said Askari, who helped negotiate the declaration of principles, which outlined the strategic framework. "This is not what we agreed on."