Efforts on to seal security agreement between Iraq and the US; Gates warns Iraq of negative consequences; 15 people die in tribal clashes
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    • A meeting of the Political Council for National Security was held to discuss the draft security pact which would see the US withdraw troops by 2011. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh stated that no decision was taken at the meeting. While the Shia alliance in the Iraqi coalition government stated that it would seek to make changes to the agreement, radical Shiite factions led by al-Sadr also strongly opposed the deal. Thousands of Sadr supporters marched the streets of Baghdad on October 18, 2008 in protest against the agreement. The US and Iraqi governments had earlier stated that the pact was final and could not be amended. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki postponed a planned trip to Australia to participate in the discussions. Maliki's efforts to gain official approval for the draft from the Political Council however appeared to have failed as the meeting ended without an agreement. The council is composed of the president, the two vice-presidents, speaker of parliament and leaders of the political factions. Dabbagh pointed out that the only groups to have endorsed the draft without any reservations were the main Kurdish parties - President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Among provisions in the draft being opposed included the mechanism for allowing Iraq to prosecute US troops and contractors accused of serious crimes. The current UN mandate for US-led coalition forces expires at the end of the year1.

    Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned of “dramatic consequences” if Washington and Baghdad did not agree on a security deal regarding US forces in Iraq. He added that if there were no Status of Forces Agreement, the US would have to “basically stop doing anything.” Gates also stated that the US had “great reluctance” to renegotiate2.

    In continuing violence, Iraqi officials stated that 15 people diad in clashes between militants and Sunni tribesmen in Babil province in central Iraq. The violence came ahead of the transfer of security duties in the province from US to Iraqi troops, which was to take place on October 23. The militants fought members of two Sunni tribes who had formed an anti-al-Qaeda militia in the previous year. A number of people were also injured in the clashes. The province would be the 12th of 18 provinces to be handed back to the Iraqi security forces. Babil has seen much sectarian violence, including a suicide attack in Hilla in March 2007 that left more than 100 Shia pilgrims dead3.

    Anxieties over the transfer of power rose earlier in the week when, the departure of US troops from Sakhreya, a disputed area between Babil and Anbar provinces, sparked a firefight between rival factions of the Sunni al-Bouisa tribe, one supporting the US and the other sympathetic to Al Qaeda4.

    In another development, a suicide car bomber in Baghdad drove into a convoy that included a vehicle carrying the minister of labor and social affairs. The blast killed 11 people and wounded 22 others. The minister was however unhurt but his nephew was killed. The attack on the Shiite labor minister, Mahmoud Muhammad al-Radhi, was the second in four months on a member of the 40-person cabinet, underlining the continued perils confronting Iraqis despite a sharp reduction in overall violence.

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