I had been wondering when anybody of the “deadlines for withdrawal = defeat” rhetoric was going to start acknowledging the agreement that the White House and the Iraqi government was working on. Certainly, I understand it didn’t work with their election plans, so they needed to keep it quiet then, but now that it has been approved by the Iraqi Government, and sets a hard date for withdrawal of troops, certainly something would have to be said or acknowledged, right? Well, not exactly.

Near as I can figure, President Bush seems to believe that he can attach a signing statement along with the Iraqi pact, saying that the dates are only aspirational.

But this isn’t true. According the The Independent:

The US had originally wanted some of its troops to stay beyond 2011 for training purposes and for withdrawal to be conditional on the security situation. The Iraqi government resisted and has prevailed. The deal still needs the approval of Iraq’s parliament, but if granted, it will spell the beginning of the end of the US occupation of Iraq.

…

The fact that the US has committed to pulling out with no strings attached should ease political and sectarian tensions in the country. After all, the vast majority of Iraqis want the American military out.

So, in other words, if going forward we actually withdraw troops according the pact hammered out by the current administration, actually removing the troops on the stated schedule can be blamed on President-Elect Obama, because this dates aren’t “firm” according to the President that will no longer be in charge at the time these dates come up.

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