U.S. Army Spc. Robert Huth, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, Fort Carson, Colo., and an Iraqi soldier secure the area while delivering a generator to a locksmith in Karama, a neighborhood in Mosul, Iraq, on Dec. 3, 2008. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. JoAnn S. Makinano, U.S. Air Force. (Released)From McClatchy Washington:
BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki last month sold the Iraqi people on a security pact with the U.S. that he called a "withdrawal agreement" to end the presence of American forces in his country by the beginning of 2012.
His top government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, undercut that claim this week, however, when he said in Washington that the U.S. might be needed in Iraq for another 10 years, a statement that reverberated with political leaders in Baghdad, renewing criticism of the deal.
"We expected something odd," said Alaa Maki, a member of a Sunni Muslim political bloc that's forced Maliki to put the security agreement before voters as a referendum next year. "That is the reason we pushed for the referendum."
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My Comment: A decade!?!?!! .... in previous posts I have been commenting that U.S. servicemen and military contractors are probably going to be in Iraq for as long as my life time (I am in my late forties). There are some in the Iraqi Government who are coming to the same conclusions.