Baghdad - The Iraqi cabinet voted overwhelmingly Sunday to approve the security agreement that sets the conditions for the Americans' continued presence in Iraq from Jan. 1 until the end of 2011.

This handout, made available by the Iraqi Prime Minister's office, shows Iraqi cabinet ministers raising their hands to vote in favor of a US-Iraq security pact on November 16, 2008. The pact includes a timetable for the withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011. (Photo: AFP / Getty Images)

    All but one of the 28 cabinet ministers who attended the two-and-a-half- hour session voted for the agreement and sent it to Parliament for consideration, a huge relief to the United States, which had been in intense negotiations with the Iraqis for nearly a year.

    The United Nations Security Council resolution that allows U.S. troops to operate in Iraq expires Dec. 31, and, without an extension of the resolution or a separate agreement with the Iraqis like that approved by the cabinet on Sunday, forces of the U.S.-led coalition would have no legal mandate to operate.

    "This is the best available alternative," the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said shortly after the vote. "We have always said this is not a perfect solution for the Iraqi side and it is not a perfect solution for the American side. But it is a procedure which was forced by circumstances and necessity.

    "This is the time after the progress in the security situation to transfer the security file to the Iraqi side, step by step."

    The draft approved Sunday requires coalition forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from the country by the end of 2011. An earlier version had language giving some flexibility to that deadline, with both sides discussing timetables and timelines for withdrawal, but the Iraqis managed to have the deadline set in stone, a significant negotiating victory. The United States has around 150,000 troops in Iraq.

    For months, the fate of the pact has been in doubt as Iraqis have pressed for more changes on a variety of issues, including jurisdiction over operations by U.S. troops and the flexibility of the withdrawal date. The United States, which had wanted the pact concluded by midsummer, gave significant concessions. Iraqi officials said minor tweaks were being made as recently as last week.

    Under the agreement, U.S. soldiers are still guaranteed immunity except in cases of serious felonies committed while off duty outside their bases.

    "We welcome the cabinet's approval of the agreement today," said a spokesperson from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "This is an important and positive step."

    Many members of Parliament from Tawafiq, the Sunni bloc, said they were still undecided on the pact, arguing that a national referendum was crucial to approval. Parties representing about one-third of that bloc's members have indicated that they would support the agreement in its current form.

    The Kurds, who had recently expressed hesitation about the agreement despite weeks of solid support, seem to have decided on approval.

    "We have already expected that the cabinet would pass this agreement, because this is the best option," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of Parliament. "Our Kurdish leaders are with the agreement.'

    Leaders of some of the smaller blocs, like Iraqia, a secular group representing 24 lawmakers, and Fadhila, a Shiite party that includes 15 members of parliament, said on Sunday that they had not yet taken a stance on the agreement because they had not seen the final draft.

    In a crucial development, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, indicated on Saturday that he would support whatever decision is arrived at in Parliament as representative of the will of the Iraqi people. Shiite officials who met with the ayatollah said eh found the latest draft acceptable, if not perfect; Sistani also made clear that he did not side with politicians who refused any agreement with the United States out of hand.

    "The people who reject this agreement did not give us a logical alternative," an official in the ayatollah's office said Sunday. "We respect their position, but we support the majority decision."

    The anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr had called for armed resistance against any agreement that allowed a continued U.S. presence in Iraq.

    "I repeat my demand to the occupier to leave our land without keeping bases or signing agreements," Sadr said in a statement read to thousands of supporters at Friday prayers. "If they keep bases, then I would support honorable resistance."

    Sistani is enormously influential among the majority Shiite population; in 2004, when he wanted to put pressure on the Americans to hold direct elections, he called upon his followers to march by the hundreds of thousands in a peaceful but powerful demonstration of force.

    Dabbagh said of the Sadrists: "You cannot guarantee a 100 percent approval of anything. They are performing and they are practicing their role in Iraqi democracy right now and they are expressing their opinion in a peaceful way and not a violent way, which we encourage."

    --------

    Stephen Farrell, Tariq Maher, Riyadh Muhammed, Muhammed Hussein, Suadad al-Salhy and Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting.

www.truthout.org/111608Y