Iraq Buys Time for US Troop Pact

One night in April, American troops stormed into Ahmed al-Baderi’s house, shot dead his wife and brother and ignited outrage over a sensitive deal defining their remit in Iraq.



“They tore down the door with a military truck,” said Baderi. “My brother Khalid went to investigate but they shot him dead. Then they killed my wife.”



The next day, hundreds of demonstrators marched on a government office in the city of Kut, where the raid took place, calling for an end to American “occupation”.



On state television, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded the United States hand over to Iraqi courts the troops who had carried out the raid. He accused American forces of violating the Status of Forces Agreement, SOFA – a pact overseeing the remainder of their deployment in Iraq that Maliki had helped broker.



The US said its troops had behaved properly and within the provisions of the agreement. A military statement released after the raid said the troops had shot dead a man who approached them carrying a weapon. A woman who “moved into the line of fire” also died despite receiving emergency treatment from a military doctor.



Four months after the incident, few questions have been answered but much of the outrage has ebbed.



Baderi says he has received an apology from the US military and a payment totalling 100 million dinars (about 90,000 US dollars) from Iraqi and US officials.



Meanwhile, a referendum on the SOFA that was due to have been held this summer has been postponed until January. It will now coincide with Iraqi parliamentary elections.



The government announced the plebiscite had been delayed to save money. Its critics said Maliki did not want to risk his re-election prospects with the public defeat of an accord he had claimed credit for.



SHOCK AND SCEPTICISM



The SOFA describes the terms under which US troops can operate in Iraq as they slowly reduce their deployment. The deal was worked out over 2008 between Baghdad and the government of former US president George W Bush.



It envisages a phased withdrawal for US combat troops, starting with an exit from most of Iraq’s towns and cities by June 30, 2009. By August 2010, the deal says most US forces would leave the country. Of those that remain, all would be gone by the end of 2011.



The agreement was ratified by the Iraqi parliament in December last year. Critics who said the deal was a smokescreen for prolonging the US military occupation were promised it would be put to a referendum this summer.



The accord includes provisions for some US troops to stay behind to assist, train or advise their Iraqi counterparts. In order to carry out military operations in Iraq, US troops must seek prior Iraqi approval and be accompanied by Iraqi forces – or they must show they are acting in self-defence. They cannot be tried in Iraqi courts as long they can prove they were on an official mission.



A US military statement, released hours after the raid in Kut on April 26, said the operation had been “fully coordinated and approved by the Iraqi government”.



However, Iraqi officials in Baghdad and in Kut are adamant that the Americans broke the rules when they attacked the Baderi house. The Iraqi cabinet called the assault an “unacceptable breach” of the SOFA.



Yusef Mihawish, the deputy governor of Wasit province, insisted that US forces had not gone through the appropriate channels to receive approval for the raid.



“We have a security committee, chaired by the provincial governor, and we have a joint operations room with the US forces. The Americans should have informed us of the raid through the operations room,” Mihawish said. “Instead, they violated the security agreement.”



Wasit provincial council chairman Mahmud Talal said, “There was no coordination between local authorities and the forces that stormed the house.” He said he only learnt of the raid the following morning.



Among some people in Kut, shock at the raid mingled with scepticism that Iraqi officials had no warning of it.



“How can a military force enter a city without the knowledge of the local authorities?” asked Abdul-Fattah, a vehicle mechanic. “Where is the local government and what role does it play?”



CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS



Most of the doubt has focused on the US military’s official account of the raid.



Its statement on April 26 said nine suspects were held in the raid, which was aimed at a “criminal network” smuggling weapons to Shia militiamen. Kut is in Wasit province, whose border with Iran is believed to be a supply route for insurgents.



Baderi, a tribal chief in his mid-fifties with a greying beard, denied his family was involved in crime or insurgency. He said US forces arrested him, several family members and a neighbour.



“We were taken away by helicopter,” he told IWPR. “The investigator asked me to identify people in some photos but I did not know any of them.”



The Americans released all their captives shortly afterwards - according to Baderi, after admitting they had made a mistake.



On the evening on April 26, the US commander for the region, Colonel Richard M Francey, appeared at a news conference with Iraqi officials and apologised for the assault in Kut.



According to Baderi, Iraqi and US officials later gave him money they said was intended to cover the cost of funerals for his brother and wife.



He said he received 60 million dinars (54,500 dollars) from US forces and another 40 million dinars from the Iraqi government.



The US military in Iraq and at its headquarters in Florida did not respond to IWPR’s requests for comment on the Kut raid.



However, Major John Redfield, a spokesman for the US Central Command in Florida, said the US gives “condolence payments to recognise the loss to people who may have suffered harm as a result of our ongoing fight with the enemy”.



“Payments in these situations are meant to console individuals and do not constitute an admission that deaths resulted from unlawful acts or that US forces were at fault,” he said.



Tariq Harb, a prominent lawyer and activist in Baghdad, said the payment to Baderi had calmed the outcry over the raid.



Harb attributed the dispute over the assault to “a severe lack of coordination between Iraqi and American forces” and said it was unlikely to happen again.



“The raid served as a wake-up call to US troops. Moreover, there is less risk of friction now, as most US troops have withdrawn from the towns and villages,” he said, citing the latest move under the SOFA.



Conflicting Iraqi and US accounts of the raid may be hard to reconcile, Harb said, but they would eventually become irrelevant. He said no US soldiers would face charges in Iraqi courts as the US had insisted they were on an official mission in Kut - and therefore immune from prosecution.



A TIMELY DELAY?



Several politicians have criticised clauses within the SOFA that they say give US troops too much room for manoeuvre.



Iman al-Asadi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s legal committee, whose Shia party is likely to challenge Maliki in January, said she had objected to the provision that allows US troops to defend themselves whenever necessary.



“This is a loophole that can be used by the Americans ... The phrase is loose and liable to be interpreted in several ways,” she said. “I asked the law committee to change it, but in vain.”



Opponents of Maliki – and of the SOFA - had hoped incidents such as the Kut raid would mobilise public opinion in time for a referendum on the accord scheduled for this summer.



They are angry at the decision to delay the vote so that it coincides with parliamentary elections in January.



Fallah Hasan Shensal, a member of parliament loyal to the anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said the government had sought the postponement because it knew the public would reject the pact.



“They have rescheduled the referendum for a day when the voters will be distracted by the elections,” he said.



Abbas al-Shihabi, a political commentator, said the government feared voters would punish it for other, broader failures by voting against the SOFA this summer.



Under the terms of the SOFA, any party that wishes to withdraw from the agreement must give its partner a year’s notice.



Thus a possible rejection of the pact by the Iraqi public next January would still give US troops until January 2011 to adapt their strategy. By this date, the vast majority of American troops would already have withdrawn from Iraq under the terms of the existing agreement.



“By delaying the referendum, the government is trying to make it obsolete,” Shensal said.



Officials allied to Maliki disagree. Walid al-Hilli, a senior member of the prime minister’s Dawa party and head of its human rights office, said the plebiscite was postponed in order to ensure security and “reduce cost and effort”.



Either way, Hilli said, most Iraqis are likely to accept the SOFA because it is backed by political blocs that represent them.



Harb admitted that even if Iraqis vote against the SOFA, the referendum will have “little impact” because US forces would still have a year within which to withdraw.



But he believes the public will not reject the agreement. The majority of Iraqis and political blocs support the phased pullout of US forces, he said.



Moreover, he added, the impact of incidents such as the assault in April fades with time.



“The Kut raid has been forgotten,” Harb said. “Iraqi society is full of tragedies.”



IWPR-trained journalist Mohammed al-Zaidi produced this report from Kut. IWPR-trained journalist Basim al-Shara and IWPR Iraq editor Neil Arun contributed from Baghdad and Erbil.