The insurgents will be giving up en mass if Obama wins the White House. They'll all be wanting their free tickets to Club Gitmo before Obama surrenders.

Well if anyone thinks we will not be there indefinately is fooling themselves. Maybe not in Iraq, but we will be close by. I would guess we will keep support personel and some form of aviation as well as a quick reaction force, maybe a few battalions, in Iraq for many years to come. The majority will be out in a few years. As long as our relations sour and continue to decline with Iran we will have a few carriers on station to protect the oil routes through the straight. Don't kid yourselves, we aren't completely leaving.

I put it in bold, put your name on it and you still glossed over it. You should always read for comprehension, not for attack.

"We let him keep the gun because every Iraqi family is allowed to have a personal weapon,"

Yes, it's true: we can leave now. It is becoming time for us to leave. Install a nice protectable embassy and a few bases, and otherwise leave.

Iraq says timetable. US says no.

Iraq says complete withdrawal. US says "a few battalions" "a few bases" (I paraphrase, but that is a very common sentiment).

Who decides? If there is no timetable, will we have "won" that battle? If there are no bases and no battalions will we have "lost" that battle? Will Iraq have "won"?

I think this paradigm "win / lose" is nearly useless by virtue of its rigidity. It is counterproductive, at best, even for those in favor of this whole process, to continue to oversimplify the possible outcomes this way.

U.S. seeking 58 bases in Iraq, Shiite lawmakers say

By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD -Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed "status of forces" agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely.

Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would have effectively handed over to the United States the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran.

"The points that were put forth by the Americans were more abominable than the occupation," said Jalal al Din al Saghir, a leading lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. "We were occupied by order of the Security Council," he said, referring to the 2004 Resolution mandating a U.S. military occupation in Iraq at the head of an international coalition. "But now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation. That is why we have absolutely refused all that we have seen so far."

Other conditions sought by the United States include control over Iraqi air space up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation with two years notice from either side, lawmakers said.

"It would impair Iraqi sovereignty," said Ali al Adeeb a leading member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Dawa party of the proposed accord. "The Americans insist so far that is they who define what is an aggression on Iraq and what is democracy inside Iraq... if we come under aggression we should define it and ask for help."

Both Saghir and Adeeb said that the Iraqi government rejected the terms as unacceptable. They said the government wants a U.S. presence and a U.S. security guarantee but also wants to control security within the country, stop indefinite detentions of Iraqis by U.S. forces and have a say in U.S. forces' conduct in Iraq.

The 58 bases would represent an expansion of the U.S. presence here. Currently, the United States operates out of about 30 major bases, not including smaller facilities such as combat outposts, according to a U.S. military map.

" Is there sovereignty for Iraq - or isn't there? If it is left to them, they would ask for immunity even for the American dogs," Saghir said. "We have given Bush our views - some new ideas and I find that there is a certain harmony between his thoughts and ours. And he promised to tell the negotiators to change their methods."

Maliki returned Monday from his second visit to Iran, whose Islamic rulers are adamantly opposed to the accord. Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei said following meetings with Maliki that we have "no doubt that the Americans' dreams will not come true."

Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, criticized the lawmakers for poisoning the public discussion before an agreement is concluded. He said U.S. officials had been flexible in the talks, as well as "frank and honest since the beginning."

"This is an ongoing process," Zebari said. "There is no agreement yet. Proposals have been modified, they have been changed and altered. We don't have a final text yet for them to be judgmental."

Zebari, who said a negotiating session was held with U.S. officials on the new accord Monday, said any agreement will be submitted to the Iraqi parliament for approval. Leaders in the U.S. Congress have also demanded a say in the agreement, but the Bush administration says it is planning to make this an executive accord not subject to Senate ratification.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain didn't respond for requests for comment, but the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, said through a spokesman that he believes the Bush administration must submit the agreement to Congress and that it should make "absolutely clear" that the United States will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said he had not heard of a plan to seek 50 or more bases in Iraq, and that if it is the case, Congress is likely to challenge the idea. "Congress would have a lot of questions, and the president should be very careful in negotiating," Hamilton, who now directs the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, told McClatchy.

The top U.S. Embassy spokesman in Iraq rejected the latest Iraqi criticism.

"Look, there is going to be no occupation," said U.S. spokesman Adam Ereli. "Now it's perfectly understandable that there are those that are following this closely in Iraq who have concerns about what this means for Iraqi sovereignty and independence. We understand that and we appreciate that and that's why nothing is going to be rammed down anybody's throat.

"It's kind of like a forced marriage. It just doesn't work. They either want you or they don't want you. You can't use coercion to get them to like you," he added.

U.S. officials in Baghdad say they are determined to complete the accord by July 31 so that parliamentary deliberations can be completed before the Dec. 31 expiration of the UN mandate.

The agreement will not specify how many troops or where they will be deployed, said a U.S. official who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject, but the agreement will detail the legal framework under which U.S. troops will operate. The U.S. official said that in the absence of a UN resolution authorizing the use of force, "there have to be terms that are in place. That's the reality that we're trying to accommodate."

Iraqis are determined to get their nation removed from the purview of the U.N. Security Council under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows the international body to declare a country a threat to international peace, a step the U.N. took after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Iraqi officials say that designation clearly is no longer appropriate.

But even on that basic request, the U.S. has not promised to support Iraq, Saghir said, and is insteadn withholding that support as a pressure point in negotiations.

U.S. demands "conflict with our sovereignty and we refuse them," said Hassan Sneid, a member of the Dawa party and a lawmaker on the security committee in the parliament. "I don't expect these negotiations will be done by the exact date. The Americans want so many things and the fact is we want different things."

"If we had to choose one or the other, an extension of the mandate or this agreement, we would probably choose the extension," Saghir said. "It is possible that in December we will send a letter the UN informing them that Iraq no longer needs foreign forces to control its internal security. As for external defense, we are still not ready."

Margaret Talev in Washington contributed.

Perhaps now they are allowed to have guns, but this was not the case when America invaded in 1991, or 2003.

America didn't invade in 1991.

Yes, American soldiers illegally invaded Iraq in 1991 when Iraq and Kuwait were having a dispute that had nothing to do with America.

Uh, I thought one of the major complaints was that this current Iraq war was due in large part because our troops stayed in Kuwait rather than driving all the way to Baghdad?

I suppose few adjusted for inflation is 58. I'm all for declaring victory and getting out, but that would involve actually getting out. We've, reportedly, defeated an enemy that wasn't there when we invaded, but if that's what it takes to declare victory and actually get out count me in.

Of course, some would assume that this clears the decks for the next war of choice in Iran. Anyone interested in a world war should really get rolling on that before a new administration takes over. I'll leave the bin Laden commentary to tw and the other nutters who think that the Stans have oil er... terrorists.

So now your narrative is that the entire country was systematically disarmed so that a massacre could take place, but has re-armed in the last, what, six months?

US troops killed in Iraq in the first 9 days of July: 2

You're only as sovereign as the country occupying your land...

I've seen video of soldiers breaking down doors, shoving people to the floor, and taking all of the guns in the house so don't even pretend it didn't happen. As far as the massacre, America is responsible for the deaths of at least 1 million Iraqi people and probably closer to 2 million. This is through 2 illegal invasions on the part of America, and bombing Iraq daily for 12 years, setting up illegal "no fly" zones, searching homes illegally...including those of the leader of their country, keeping Iraq from life saving medicines and food, destroying Iraq's ability to defend itself and thus allowing a flood of terrorists into their country, imprisoning people who have committed no crime, torturing them (sometimes to death), etc.

I don't know when they decided to start allowing people to have guns again. Perhaps it was when they had their fake election?