U.S. will leave Iraq if asked...EDIT: Colin Powell chimes in!

[conjur]

http://interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/05130000aaa00ca2.upi&Sys=siteia&Fid=WORLDNEW&Type=News&Filter=World%20News

WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. and coalition forces will leave Iraq if asked to do so by an interim Iraqi government, a State Department official told the House Thursday.

During occasionally combative questioning by bipartisan members of the International Relations Committee, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman said that the United States would respect the wishes of a newly sovereign Iraq even if it meant withdrawing troops before Iraqi general elections are held in 2005. The sovereignty handover is scheduled for June 30.

Grossman repeatedly insisted that he did not believe such a request would be made by the new Iraqi body.

The notion that coalition forces would take marching orders from Iraqis was challenged by a military representative testifying before the committee. Lt. General Walter L. Sharp of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that U.S.-led multinational forces were authorized under U.N. resolutions to operate in Iraq at least until a permanent constitutional government was elected.


Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.

 

[AcidicFury]

Whaaaaa, no way. That hasn't gone up the chain of command yet.

 

[arsbanned]

hehe. Riiiiight. Yeah'll after investing 150 billion they're just gonna vamooose! Outta here! Right.

 

[conjur]

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm thinking.

I can't wait to hear the backlash against this guy from the administration.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
hehe. Riiiiight. Yeah'll after investing 150 billion they're just gonna vamooose! Outta here! Right.

We were there for freedom and freedom alone!

:roll:

(sarcasm)

 

[imported_Aelius]

Freedom has a price.

Its just a guess but that price in this case is probably oil.

"We must secure tomorrow today!" - The Manchurian Candidate

 

[rickn]

they'd withdraw their forces, to the military bases they've set up and will own there.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: AcidicFury
Whaaaaa, no way. That hasn't gone up the chain of command yet.

 

[arsbanned]

they'd withdraw their forces, to the military bases they've set up and will own there.

Until finally withdrawing completely in 1975-oh wait-wrong war, sorry.

 

[Witling]

Quote: "hehe. Riiiiight. Yeah'll after investing 150 billion they're just gonna vamooose! Outta here! Right."

"Investing my a$$. A better verb would be "squandering" or perhaps "spending."

 

[klah]

(former)Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs

 

[arsbanned]

"Investing my a$$. A better verb would be "squandering" or perhaps "spending."

I meant from Cheney's POV.
Good point

 

[Pepsei]

Yea right. Who here believe that's true?

If by "leaving" in a different context like "mission accomplished", maybe.

 

[conjur]

Bremer tells Iraqi leaders US would leave Iraq if Iraqi government so requests

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) The U.S. governor of Iraqi told regional officials Friday that the United States would leave Iraq if requested to do so by the new Iraqi government although he thinks such a move is unlikely.

L. Paul Bremer told a delegation from Iraq's Diyala province that American forces would not stay where they were unwelcome.

''If the provisional government asks us to leave we will leave,'' Bremer said, referring to an Iraqi administration due to take power June 30. ''I don't think that will happen, but obviously we don't stay in countries where we're not welcome.''

The United States plans to keep substantial military forces here after the June 30 handover, prompting critics to question whether Iraqis will gain genuine sovereignty.

American officials have said that the terms of the U.S. military role will ultimately be determined by a status of forces agreement to be signed with the new Iraqi government.

On Thursday, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said the new Iraqi government will not have the authority to evict American forces from Iraq, quickly reversing a statement made minutes earlier before a House of Representatives panel.

Grossman's comments reflect the difficult balance the U.S. government is trying to strike as it moves closer to the June 30 handover.

When first asked by House International Relations Committee members whether an interim Iraqi government could force U.S. troops to leave, Grossman stressed that Iraqi leaders wanted them to remain. He also said that the Iraqi interim constitution and a U.N. resolution gave them authority to do so.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, kept asking Grossman, ''If they ask us to leave, we will leave, will we not?'' Pressed for a yes-or-no answer, Grossman eventually said yes.

But he later agreed with another panelist, Lt. Gen. Walter L. Sharp, that the interim constitution and U.N. resolution gave U.S.-led forces responsibility for Iraqi security for the immediate future.

After the hearing, Grossman was asked if that meant U.S. forces would not leave if asked by the interim government. ''That is correct,'' he said.

U.S. officials have said that the terms of the American military role will ultimately be determined by a status of forces agreement to be signed with the new Iraqi government.

Though some officials have said such an agreement could be signed with the interim government, Grossman said it would be negotiated with the government formed after elections expected in January.

 

[conjur]

Powell Says U.S. Would Withdraw Troops From Iraq If New Government Requests It

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and WARREN HOGE

Published: May 15, 2004


WASHINGTON, May 14 ? Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was joined by the foreign ministers of Britain, Italy and Japan on Friday in declaring that they would honor any request by Iraq's new government to withdraw foreign troops after June 30, when it is to receive limited sovereignty.

Speaking after a meeting of officials from leading industrial nations, Mr. Powell and his colleagues emphasized that they did not expect such a request to come. It inconceivable, they asserted, for anyone to doubt that a troop pullout would lead to chaos and violence in Iraq.

But the envoys evidently felt compelled to clarify the issue after some testimony in Congress on Thursday left the administration's intentions unclear. "I have no doubt that the interim Iraqi government will welcome the continued presence and operation of coalition military forces," Mr. Powell said, adding that he was "absolutely losing no sleep thinking that they might ask us to leave."

But he said that, in the interest of clearing up any confusion, "were this interim government to say to us, `We really think we can handle this on our own; it would be better if you were to leave,' we would leave."

Although few outside experts say they expect an Iraqi government to ask for a withdrawal of American and other allied forces, the issue has come up this week with the vehement anti-American reaction among Iraqis to the prison abuse scandal.

At the House International Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, a top aide to Mr. Powell, Marc Grossman, was asked repeatedly what would happen if such feelings erupted after sovereignty is transferred. After resisting an answer, he finally said the United States would honor such a request.

Mr. Grossman, under secretary of state for political affairs, was then contradicted by Lt. Gen. L. Walter Sharp, director of strategic plans for the military's joint staff, who said an Iraqi pullout request would not be valid unless it were made by an elected government due to take office next year.

Mr. Powell and his colleagues were evidently ready for the question at their news conference at the State Department after a long day of meetings, including a brief session with President Bush at the White House. The foreign ministers of Italy, Britain and Japan chimed in endorsing Mr. Powell's answer.

Despite the certainty of their responses, the determination of the envoys to set the record straight underscored the disarray and ambiguity right now in their plans for the future governance of Iraq.

Mr. Powell and the other envoys said they were still discussing broad concepts for the wording of a United Nations Security Council resolution defining the new Iraqi government's security powers, as well as its control of oil revenues, the prison system and other matters.

It was obvious from various public comments here and elsewhere that they had some distance to go to bridge their differences, which mainly focus on a demand by France, Russia and some others that the Iraqi government be given wide powers over its own affairs and that a multinational force be given a timetable to leave.

The United States is resisting making such provisions explicit, diplomats involved in the process say.

In New York on Friday, for example, Jean-Marc de la Sablière, the French envoy to the United Nations, said a caretaker government should have the right to object to orders from American officers sending Iraqi soldiers into combat.

"Imagine the Iraqis being asked to go into Karbala or whatever place and not having the right to say no," Mr. de la Sablière told reporters. "It would be absurd to have the Iraqi armed forces engaged without the consent of the Iraqi government."

In Washington, a senior administration official dismissed this demand as unnecessary, saying that it was self-evident that no one could order Iraqi troops to take an action against their will. "Are we going to send them into battle at the point of a gun?" this official said.

Nevertheless, the French comment underscored an emerging theme in the discussions over a future Security Council resolution, with France and Russia once again taking the lead ? as they did in the months before the war ? in raising a challenge to the American approach.

In this case, diplomats say there is hope of averting a clash.

The Bush administration is planning for an Iraqi government to emerge in the next couple weeks from a selection process led by Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy, who is in Baghdad with the task of bringing such a government full blown "as from the brow of Zeus," as a State Department official commented recently.

The foreign ministers conferring in Washington on Friday were also from Germany, Canada and the European Union. All were in town to prepare for the Group of 8 summit meeting of leading industrial nations on Sea Island, Ga., next month.

As they struggled to narrow their differences on Iraq, the envoys said they were also trying to refine a planned appeal, the Greater Middle East Initiative, calling for democratic reforms in that region. An eight-page draft circulated this week among the envoys, but many were reported on Friday to have found it overly long and cumbersome.

Javier Solana, chief foreign affairs adviser to the European Union, said some progress had been made in shortening a document that, in its longer version, had been viewed by Arab leaders as imperialistic in tone. More important than whatever the Group of 8 does, he said, is what the Arab League decides in another week. "After the declarations are all adopted, the important thing will be the implementation," Mr. Solana said. "That will be the real test."

 

[Ozoned]

If the US were to leave now, and Given the Saudi's efforts to improve their image, would Saudia Arabia try to step in to clean up the mess?(yes)

And if they did, who would have a problem with that?(Israel, Iraq, Iran, amongst many others.)



De-stabilization, anyone?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

All this means is they wont put anyone in place who would ask.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith
All this means is they wont put anyone in place who would ask.

That was my first thought.

 

[EagleKeeper]

They will have already discussed this possibilty with the new government (selected).

Statements like that would not be made if there was a chance that the bluff would be called.
It is a tit-4-tat.

Show the American public that were are appreciated over there; in return we will provide as much assistance as is desired and play lip service when asked. (after the proper words are negotiated)

 

[chess9]

Once elections are held, no small assumption, what will the U.S. do?

Of course in the meantime our puppets will do exactly as told. Did anyone expect otherwise?

-Robert

 

[Witling]

I think we actually might begin to withdraw. This administration is obsessed with getting reelected (aren't they all). Starting the withdrawal might reverse the downward spiral of public opinion. After all, there's always time to reevaluate after the election and decide that we need to stay to protect our little brown brothers.

 

[conjur]

With the news that Rumsfeld, Rice, and Bush planned and approved the prisoner abuses, I'd be willing to bet the interim gov't DOES demand the U.S. to get the hell out!