Iraq's parliament approves security pact Richard Tomkins Thursday, November 27, 2008
BAGHDAD | Iraq's parliament approved a pact that allows U.S. troops to remain in the country for another three years Thursday, but it linked its consent to political reforms and a referendum to reaffirm the accord in July.
The status-of-forces agreement, which is expected to be ratified by the three-member Presidential Council, is set to go into effect Jan. 1.
"This is a historic day for the great Iraqi people," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in a 10-minute address on national television. "We have achieved one of its most important achievements in approving the agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq and restoring the sovereignty it lost two decades ago."
Mr. al-Maliki was referring to former President Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which led to U.N. sanctions and a broad international isolation.
The strings attached to passing the deal represented an eleventh-hour concession made by the government to a bloc of Sunni parliamentarians to secure their support. If the measure is rejected by the July referendum, U.S. forces could have to depart Iraq within a year unless a new arrangement was put in place.
"It is not only the Iraqi parliament that has a role in overseeing this agreement, but the Iraqi people," National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaie said on Al-Arabiya television earlier this week.
There were conflicting figures after the voting in the 275-member chamber, but most reports said three-quarters, or up to 200 lawmakers, voted in favor. Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani was quoted as saying the ratification was “overwhelming.”
Under the pact, Iraq will have strict oversight over the nearly 150,000 American troops now on the ground, representing a step toward full sovereignty for Iraq. It will replace the expiring U.N. Security Council mandate that gave legitimacy to the U.S.-led presence after Saddam's ousting in 2003.
According to the pact's provisions, all U.S. troops must leave Iraq by midnight on Dec. 31, 2011, but they must abandon their bases in cities, towns and villages earlier - by June 30, 2009. In addition, the United States pledges not to use Iraq for attacks on neighboring countries such as Iran and Syria.
U.S. forces must also obtain warrants from Iraqi courts before detaining terrorist suspects or searching homes, except in combat situations, and must secure Iraqi Security Force permission for its operations — from daily patrols to large-scale sweeps.
President Bush applauded the parliamentary approval of the accord.
"Two years ago, this day seemed unlikely," Mr. Bush said in a statement from his mountaintop retreat at Camp David. "But the success of the surge and the courage of the Iraqi people set the conditions for these two agreements to be negotiated and approved by the Iraqi parliament."
The victory appeared to satisfy the guidelines of the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had indicated that the deal would be acceptable only if passed by a comfortable majority.
At least one unit is not waiting for the agreement's formal entry into force before acting to implement its spirit.
Officers of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in charge of Baghdad said they will implement the warrant requirement beginning Monday. The 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment in East Baghdad, for example, has already compiled information packets on seven to nine suspects, which include signed witness statements and other corroborating evidence.
The packets will be used to obtain warrants from a court. Packets are being prepared for 11 more suspects, but Battalion Executive Officer Maj. Geoff Greene said a lot of ambiguity remains on what can and cannot be done.
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China preparing to send navy ships to Gulf of Aden By Mark McDonald December 17, 2008
HONG KONG: In what would be the first active deployment of its warships beyond the Pacific, China appears set to send naval vessels to help in the fight against hijackers in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden.
A vice foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese state media on Wednesday as saying that Beijing was close to mounting a naval mission in the gulf.
"China is seriously considering sending naval ships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast for escorting operations in the near future," said the Foreign Ministry official, He Yafei, as quoted by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. His remarks came at a ministerial meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Li Jie, a military strategist and naval expert, told the state-run China Daily that cooperating with a multinational force operating against East African pirates would be a "very good opportunity" for the Chinese Navy.
"Apart from fighting pirates," he said, "another key goal is to register the presence of the Chinese Navy."
The newspaper earlier this month said Major General Jin Yinan, a military planner at the National Defense University, had conceived the Gulf of Aden plan. The paper quoted Jin as saying "the Chinese Navy should send naval vessels to the Gulf of Aden to carry out anti-piracy duties."
"If one day the Chinese Navy sends ships to deal with pirates," he said, "nobody should be shocked."
Traditionally concerned with coastal defense, the naval forces of the People's Liberation Army have been undergoing a wide and rapid modernization program, especially in the bolstering of their submarine fleet. A long-range goal of the Chinese expansion has been the development of a blue-water navy capable of extended tours.
About 60 percent of China's imported oil comes from the Middle East, and the bulk of that passes through the gulf, along with huge shipments of raw materials out of Africa. Just last month, two Chinese ships were hijacked there, a fishing trawler and a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship carrying wheat.
"I would think they would go to protect their own interests - just for escorting purposes and not for policing," said Jane Chan, associate research fellow in the Maritime Security Program at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "I don't think they're talking about going on the offensive right now so far away."
While China has been "quite wary of putting maritime assets in the region and wary of doing anything out in the open," Chinese diplomats have been active in anti-piracy efforts, according to Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association.
"The Chinese have been working diplomatically with the Yemeni government and coast guard, and their ambassador in Nairobi is very heavily involved," Bowring said. "They may not seem out in front, but they work extremely hard in the back seat."
To help combat the dramatic rise of ever-more-brazen hijackings in the gulf, the European Union began its first-ever naval mission this month, a six-ship flotilla. The EU operation, code-named Atalanta, joined other navies already patrolling there, including those of the United States, Russia and India.
It was unclear what level of participation Beijing might take, if and when it joins the international effort in the gulf. "China is usually quite conservative about playing with the big guys or saying they're going to match up with them," Chan said.
Also this month, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution allowing navies to breach Somalia's 19-kilometer, or 12-mile, territorial limit in pursuit of what they believe to be pirates. And on Tuesday, the Council voted unanimously to permit attacks on pirate bases on the ground as well.
Although pirates use "mother ships" to attack merchant vessels deep in international waters, they are resupplied and find a haven in towns along the lawless coast of Somalia.
More than 100 vessels have been attacked by pirates in the gulf this year, and 42 have been hijacked. Sixteen are currently being held for ransom.
Pirates board Chinese ship
Pirates boarded a Chinese cargo ship off the coast of Somalia but failed to hijack the vessel Wednesday, thanks to quick action by a naval force patrolling the area, The Associated Press reported from Kuala Lumpur.
The attack occurred in the same area where a Malaysian-owned tugboat and a Turkish vessel were seized Tuesday, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.
He said the Chinese ship sent a distress message to the International Maritime Bureau after it was chased by nine pirates in speedboats in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates managed to board the ship but the crew members locked themselves in their cabins.
Choong said a multicoalition naval force sent two helicopters and a warship to the area. The helicopters "fired at the pirates, forcing them to flee the ship," he said. "Nobody was injured."
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