Iraq Press Roundup

The U.S.-Iraqi security pact passed through the Iraqi Parliament in the Thursday session. While the majority of the members present raised their hands in support of the agreement, other members, including the Sadrist Movement, demonstrated in opposition.

Kitabat newspaper said Friday that after the passage of the agreement, Iraqis hope the occupying power will comply with its promises in regards to the troop withdrawal.

The security pact has passed, what else is left?

The agreement between Iraq and the United States passed through the Iraqi Parliament, but neither Baghdad nor Washington has considered the suffering of the Iraqi people and their demands for health, educational and economic improvement.

Iraqi politicians are only attentive when considering their independent interests, political positions and sectarian affiliation -- everything else comes second. The majority of their time is spent establishing conspiracies and setting up traps for their rivals.

This is, after all, what the occupier had hoped for -- to put the Iraqi political landscape in turmoil and pit its members against each other. It was, however, the Iraqi politicians that gave foreign powers the ability to create internal division.

The Iraqi Parliament should be congratulated for passing the security pact with the United States, Sot al-Iraq news service said.

Many of the Shiite political leaders who voiced their opposition to the agreement with Washington were among the same figures who conspired with Saddam Hussein to commit heinous crimes against the Iraqi people.

The Shiites were able to help the Sunnis secure a provision in the agreement to release Iraqi prisoners, the news agency said.

The members of Parliament who opposed the measure forgot that the people of Iraq needed their support and moved against a measure that puts a U.S. troop withdrawal in motion. Instead, they should have demanded the U.S. forces clean up the uranium and cluster bombs scattered throughout the south of the country rather than oppose or abstain from the pact.

The political parties that backed the U.S. framework for a troop withdrawal decided to do so only after Washington decided to build its biggest embassy in the world in Baghdad, Shabab al-Iraq said Friday.

The Iraqi Parliament passes the agreement

The agreement that passed Parliament Thursday only considers the interests of the occupation forces and gives no consideration to the Iraqi people. It merely establishes the notion that Iraq is under occupation.

The agreement legalizes the U.S. occupation of Iraq because it sanctions the presence of U.S. forces outside of a U.N. mandate.

For this reason, Washington, with the help of the Iraqi government, changed the name of the pact to satisfy those in the opposition from a Status of Forces Agreement to a "security pact." Later in the negotiation process, it was referred to as "the withdrawal agreement." But all of these names describe one thing -- the continued occupation of Iraq.

The Iraqi government and Parliament are supposed to assure the people that they are competent to safeguard the country and its sovereignty. The reality on the ground, however, is that they sold the country to the oil-hungry occupation forces cheaply and for their own personal interest.

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(Edited by Daniel Graeber)