Iraq Press Roundup

The Iraqi people are waiting patiently for their situation to improve, now that the security pact with Washington passed following nine months of negotiations.

The Shiite al-Adala newspaper said Monday the Iraqi people welcomed the U.S.-Iraqi security contract and viewed it as a positive step toward restoring complete sovereignty.

A public relief at passing the Iraqi-U.S. agreement

Signing the agreement that replaces the U.N. mandate for Iraq was a crowning achievement for the country, as it put Iraq on equal footing with some of the most powerful countries in the world.

The new state of Iraq requires agreements on security, economic and cultural issues with industrial powers such as the United States and Europe. The agreement passed by the Iraqi Parliament Thursday not only limits the movements of U.S. forces, but removes Iraq from the U.N. provision that classifies Iraq as an occupied country and helps it on the road to reconstruction.

More importantly, the newspaper said, the agreement shuts the door on terrorist entities that were waiting for the opportunity to fill leadership voids with criminals.

And, although some politicians voted in opposition to the agreement to create chaos under the umbrella of democracy, the Iraqi government was able to settle any disputes by moving ahead with the measure.

Al-Bayyna newspaper of the Iraqi Hezbollah Party spoke out against the U.S.-Iraqi security pact, saying that while it is not uncommon for Washington to look out for its interests in Iraq, it was wrong for the Iraqi government to neglect its people.

A close look at the agreement with the United States

The agreement passed Thursday secures the interests of the occupier first and foremost, but it remains an interior issue for Iraq to make sure neighboring countries do not interfere with the political process or describe the country as a security threat.

A security threat, the newspaper said, is when Saddam Hussein turned Iraq into a menace in opposition to neighboring countries.

Expressing fear over the possibility that the U.S. military will use Iraq as a staging ground to attack other nations must be sarcastic, because these same countries allowed the U.S. military to use their land to invade Iraq, Hezbollah's newspaper commented.

Despite this, the agreement will take steps to secure Iraq's sovereignty and bring an end to the foreign occupation.

Al-Basaer newspaper of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said Monday that passage of the security agreement with Washington sanctions the crimes committed in Iraq by U.S. President George Bush.

The agreement is a disguised occupation of a failed government

Some Iraqi lawmakers voted in opposition to the agreement with the intention to reach concessions out of their own personal interest. They cared not for the dignity of their country or the demands of the people who brought them to power.

All disputes over the agreement were for the purpose of power, not for the independence of the nation, al-Basaer said

But in the end, the Iraqi people will have the last say on the humiliating agreement, which wrongly put Iraq under a U.N. Chapter 7 mandate, in a July 30 public referendum.

U.S. forces will have no option but to leave Iraq once the resistance is represented at the polling place. And once U.S. forces leave, there will be no place left for the tool that is the Iraqi government.

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(Edited by Daniel Graeber)