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 4/10 Good --- blog.newsweek.com http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/MainFeed.aspx
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 --- 56 days ago http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/checkpointbaghdad/archive/2008/06/25/bush-hosts-a
| President George W. Bush probably can't find an Iraqi more sympathetic to the idea of keeping U.S. troops in his country than Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who stopped by the White House today. The topic was the negotiations over the future of U.S. troops in Iraq and what legal status they will have when the United Nations resolution authorizing them expires at the end of the year. Talabani is an elder statesman and patron for Iraq's ethnic Kurds. He's the long-time leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish factions. Kurds, who suffered chemical gas attacks at the hands of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, have been America's closest allies in Iraq since American jets started protecting their autonomous region with a no-fly zone in the mid-1990s. U.S. soldiers can walk around safely in Kurdistan. On a trip there late last year, several Kurds told me they'd be glad to host U.S. bases permanently. For one thing, they think it would deter the Turkish invasion they fear from the north. U.S. officials in Iraq are relying on the Kurds to help sell a new agreement on an American presence in the country to more hesitant Iraqis, especially the Shiite coalition leading the government, but it's been slow going. Though American diplomats hold out hope to meet a self-imposed July 31 deadline for a deal, Iraqis are less interested. A senior Shiite figure close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told me this week ... |
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