.Analysis: ‘They Will Not Leave’
BAGHDAD — On the street here and in the well-furnished living rooms of the Iraqi intelligentsia, the recently approved Iraqi-American security pact is greeted with skepticism. People just don’t believe the Americans will leave.
There are conspiracy theorists who believe there must be loopholes; there are anti-American types who simply do not trust anything the Americans say; there are American supporters, who do not want the Americans to leave because they fear that violence will return anew and there are those who see themselves as rationalists. And rationally (from an Iraqi point of view) an invader can’t leave until he’s gotten a return on his investment.
Read the text of the Security Agreement between Iraq and the United States
“You have spent so much money, you have lost your sons, your blood, and you have not yet gotten your benefit,” said Um Tareq, a woman who works for the Defense Ministry in the Green Zone.
“They will not leave.”
Others, like Faruq Fu’ad Rafiq Hamdani, a local artist and the organizer of an art exhibition in the Dora neighborhood, which had been violent until recently,said that the area had changed after the Americans arrived.
And when they leave soon, as scheduled?
Mr. Hamdani grew grim. It will turn very bad again, he said. “We think they need to stay 10 years, then it would be OK,” he said.
Reminded that, under the security agreement, American troops are going to have to be out of all cities by the end of next June, Mr. Hamdani said “Yes, but we know they will be on bases.”
If something happens, he said hopefully, they can come from the bases and take care of it. The security agreement doesn’t guarantee that would be possible, but Mr. Hamdani was insistent.
The most senior Shiite clerics in the country do not trust the Americans to adhere to the terms of the agreement and while they don’t question the withdrawal date per se, they do seem to believe the Americans will “pressure” the Iraqis. They warned they would watching closely the actions of both the Iraqi government and the American military.
American soldiers seem to have an entirely different attitude. At checkpoints lately they have seemed to be staring into the middle distance, as if their minds were already elsewhere. At one recent checkpoint at an entry to the Green Zone, two soldiers waved a car in without checking all the passengers’ badges. The same thing has happened to others that I’ve talked to.
Such casual checks would have been unthinkable a year ago.
But in some way, the soldiers, like the American people, have already moved on.
Baghdad Buraeu
There are conspiracy theorists who believe there must be loopholes; there are anti-American types who simply do not trust anything the Americans say; there are American supporters, who do not want the Americans to leave because they fear that violence will return anew and there are those who see themselves as rationalists. And rationally (from an Iraqi point of view) an invader can’t leave until he’s gotten a return on his investment.
Read the text of the Security Agreement between Iraq and the United States
“You have spent so much money, you have lost your sons, your blood, and you have not yet gotten your benefit,” said Um Tareq, a woman who works for the Defense Ministry in the Green Zone.
“They will not leave.”
Others, like Faruq Fu’ad Rafiq Hamdani, a local artist and the organizer of an art exhibition in the Dora neighborhood, which had been violent until recently,said that the area had changed after the Americans arrived.
And when they leave soon, as scheduled?
Mr. Hamdani grew grim. It will turn very bad again, he said. “We think they need to stay 10 years, then it would be OK,” he said.
Reminded that, under the security agreement, American troops are going to have to be out of all cities by the end of next June, Mr. Hamdani said “Yes, but we know they will be on bases.”
If something happens, he said hopefully, they can come from the bases and take care of it. The security agreement doesn’t guarantee that would be possible, but Mr. Hamdani was insistent.
The most senior Shiite clerics in the country do not trust the Americans to adhere to the terms of the agreement and while they don’t question the withdrawal date per se, they do seem to believe the Americans will “pressure” the Iraqis. They warned they would watching closely the actions of both the Iraqi government and the American military.
American soldiers seem to have an entirely different attitude. At checkpoints lately they have seemed to be staring into the middle distance, as if their minds were already elsewhere. At one recent checkpoint at an entry to the Green Zone, two soldiers waved a car in without checking all the passengers’ badges. The same thing has happened to others that I’ve talked to.
Such casual checks would have been unthinkable a year ago.
But in some way, the soldiers, like the American people, have already moved on.
Baghdad Buraeu
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