Bait and switch

"The UK newspaper The Independent describes the "secret plan" by the Americans to dominate Iraq, citing clauses in a draft of the proposed bilateral agreements; but the main points were already reported in this report in AlHayat two days ago--these main points being a demand for complete freedom for American forces to enter and exit Iraq, control the land, sea and air-space, arrest any Iraqi on made-in-America terrorism charges, exemption of Americans from Iraqi legal process, and so on.

What the AlHayat piece reported, and The Independent does not, is the nature of the negotiating reaction from the Iraqi side. The AlHayat reporter says his sources indicated:

The Iraqi side posed a number of demands, including "disussions with the Iraqi government as a sovereign government, and the denial of any privileges to the American side without the agreement of the Iraqi government; the establishment of temporary American bases, whose existence would be reviewed each year, as is the case with the American bases in Turkey; the denial of movement of the Americans outside of their temporary bases without the knowledge and agreement of the Iraqi government; that financing in- and outflows for the American forces be subject to the Iraqi Central Bank; and that the American forces conduct no military operations without the written authorization of the Iraqi government".

In other words, the Iraqi side was proposing something like the Turkish model for hosting temporary American bases with annual renewal clauses, with US operations within Iraq to be permitted only subject to Iraqi government knowledge and consent."
Missing Links

You know for all the hype, all I am seeing is classic bargaining.
One party sets an initial price, high.
One party offers a bid, low.
Somewhere in-between there is a price that both parties can live with.