"We have agreed to retain more than 5,000 American trainers, without giving them "immunity," Talabani said. "We have sent them our agreement to retain this number and are awaiting their response: yes or no."
Last week, Iraqi officials, including Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, released a statement that said they'd agreed to ask for U.S. trainers but wouldn't submit the deal to the Iraqi parliament for approval and wouldn't request immunity. The statement was without details, and U.S. officials, expressing uncertainty about its meaning, said that negotiations were continuing.
Talabani's more specific statement seemed intended to clarify that, at least from an Iraqi perspective, negotiations were over, and the U.S. was expected merely either to agree to stay on or decline to do so." Miami Herald
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I would expect that this will settle the issue of whether or not there will be American soldiers in Iraq after 1 January, 2012. The American people will never accept the idea that their soldiers would be exposed to Iraqi "justuce."
Poor Ziocons, they will have to really scratch their heads and hold a few conferences at WINEP and AEI to explain this. I can hear the plaintive cries from here. "How can this be? Didn't 'they 'like the freedom?' Don't "they" realize what a debt of gratitude 'they' owe us for their freedom from Saddam? How could this be?"
Actually, this response from Talabani and Maliki (our "friends") is an example of the truth of my comment this week in the National Security Blog of the National Journal.
COIN is a diseased doctrinal shrub that bears bitter fruit. pl
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/11/2449098/iraq-says-its-asked-for-5000-us.html#ixzz1aa6Kg3mN
http://security.nationaljournal.com/2011/10/what-happens-after-2014-2.php#2089618
