Our Man In Baghdad

by dday

Earlier today I wrote about the comments from the Iraqi defense minister Abdul Qadir, who claimed that a US presence would be needed in Iraq until 2018 at the earliest. Swopa informs us that Qadir is a kind of the “player to be named later” in the Iraqi government:

A quick Googling expedition reveals that the minister’s full name is Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jasim (why the NYT refers to him only by the first half of his name, I don’t know), and he was appointed defense minister at the end of the wrangling over security ministries between the Bushites and Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government in 2006.

The odds are good that Jasim was imposed on Team Shiite in much the same manner as the U.S. has kept its preferred intelligence chief in place for the past couple of years, viewing the position as too important to let the supposedly sovereign Iraqi government control it. Of course, in the case of the intelligence director, the Iraqi government simply developed a separate spy service to circumvent him.

Swopa seems to be saying that nothing Abdul Qadir says should be believed, and his influence in the Iraqi government is minimal at best. However, it’s undeniable that the US is negotiating a status of forces agreement with the Iraqis, and the defense ministry would conceivably have something to do with that. And we know that the Administration desires to cut the Congress out of the deal. And unless there’s a separate Army we don’t know about, Qadir at least will have some say in that agreement. Being a virtual puppet of the Americans probably smooths the negotiations, too.

A lot of people in the comments questioned whether or not Bush could lock in a permanent military presence in Iraq through such an agreement. One thing I know for sure is that these bills, which would “require the administration to consult with Congress on the agreement and withhold funds for the agreement if it did not come in the form of a formal treaty,” aren’t likely to help. Bush wouldn’t sign anything that would give up his own power, so obviously this would require Republican support. And these are the people who obstructed S-CHIP, I don’t think they’ll bat an eyelash obstructing this one.

Funding for permanent military bases in Iraq was banned by the Congress… in the defense authorization bill that Bush pocket-vetoed in late December. Eventually a defense authorization bill needs to be passed; Nancy Pelosi should simply seek to override it, since Bush’s pocket veto wasn’t an actual pocket veto. Watch and see if that rider suddenly flies the coop. If you want to stop a permanent military presence in Iraq, banning the funding would be the best way to do it.