Friday, October 21, 2011

US Withdrawal from Iraq at Year End

US troops are not leaving Iraq because the US regime wants them out. They're leaving because the government of Iraq refused to let them stay.

Obama: U.S. war in Iraq ends Dec. 31.

The troop withdrawal is required by the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated with Iraq by the Bush administration. The agreement was ratified by the Iraqi parliament prior to Obama's inauguration, and expires at the end of the year. Officials had been discussing the possibility of maintaining several thousand US troops in the country to train Iraqi security forces. Ostensibly, the Iraqis wanted some US troops to stay but would not give them legal immunity, a key demand of the administration.
The only reason US troops are not going to be staying in Iraq is because the Iraqi government refused to agree that US soldiers would enjoy legal immunity if they commit serious crimes while in the country, such as killing Iraqis without cause.
If the government in Iraq granted immunity, the US troops would stay. In denying immunity, the new Iraqi government has in effect indicated that the US lost the war.

Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent and hundreds of thousands of people killed . . . so that bankers and munitions dealers could profit.
What else was accomplished?
Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons were not seized . . . because he did not have any.
There was no revenge on Iraq for the WTC attack . . . because Iraq had nothing to do with the WTC attack.
There was no punishment of Iraq for supporting al-Qaida . . . because Iraq did not support al-Qaida; Saddam Hussein was a bitter enemy of al-Qaida.
At this point, there is no indication of huge profit accruing to the US from oil in Iraq . . . perhaps because the government of Iraq represents people that the US tortured, shot, burned, mangled and maimed, for no good reason.

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