Despite Difficult Talks, U.S. and Iraq Had Expected Some American Troops to Stay
By TIM ARANGO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
BAGHDAD — President Obama’s announcement on Friday that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year was an occasion for celebration for many, but some top American military officials were dismayed by the announcement, seeing it as the president’s putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis.
And for the negotiators who labored all year to avoid that outcome, it represented the triumph of politics over the reality of Iraq’s fragile security’s requiring some troops to stay, a fact everyone had assumed would prevail. But officials also held out hope that after the withdrawal, the two countries could restart negotiations more productively, as two sovereign nations.
This year, American military officials had said they wanted a “residual” force of as many as tens of thousands of American troops to remain in Iraq past 2011 as an insurance policy against any violence. Those numbers were scaled back, but the expectation was that at least about 3,000 to 5,000 American troops would remain.
At the end of the Bush administration, when the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, was negotiated, setting 2011 as the end of the United States’ military role, officials had said the deadline was set for political reasons, to put a symbolic end to the occupation and establish Iraq’s sovereignty. But there was an understanding, a senior official here said, that a sizable American force would stay in Iraq beyond that date.
Over the last year, in late-night meetings at the fortified compound of the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and in videoconferences between Baghdad and Washington, American and Iraqi negotiators had struggled to reach an agreement. All the while, both Mr. Obama and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, gave the world a wink and nod, always saying that Iraq was ready to stand on its own but never fully closing the door on the possibility of American troops’ staying on.
Through the summer, American officials continued to assume that the agreement would be amended, and Mr. Obama was willing to support a continued military presence. In June, diplomats and Iraqi officials said that Mr. Obama had told Mr. Maliki that he was prepared to leave up to 10,000 soldiers to continue training and equipping the Iraqi security forces. Mr. Maliki agreed, but said he needed time to line up political allies.
Mr. Maliki was afraid that if he came out publicly in favor of keeping troops without gaining the support of other parties in Parliament, his rivals — particularly the former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi — would exploit the issue to weaken his shaky coalition government. Eventually, he got authorization from the group to begin talks with the Americans on keeping troops in Iraq.
In August, after debates between the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, the Americans settled on the 3,000 to 5,000 number, which was reported in August. According to two people briefed on the matter, one inside the administration and one outside, the arguments of two White House officials, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, and his deputy, Denis McDonough, prevailed over those of the military.
Intelligence assessments that Iraq was not at great risk of slipping into chaos in the absence of American forces were a factor in the decision, an American official said.
This month, American officials pressed the Iraqi leadership to meet again at President Talabani’s compound to discuss the issue. This time the Americans asked them to take a stand on the question of immunity for troops, hoping to remove what had always been the most difficult hurdle. But they misread Iraqi politics and the Iraqi public. Still burdened by the traumas of this and previous wars, and having watched the revolutions sweeping their region, the Iraqis were unwilling to accept anything that infringed on their sovereignty.
Acutely aware of that sentiment, the Iraqi leadership quickly said publicly that they would not support legal protections for any American troops. Some American officials have privately said that pushing for that meeting — in essence forcing the Iraqis to take a public stand on such a controversial matter before working out the politics of presenting it to their constituents and to Parliament — was a severe tactical mistake that ended any possibility of keeping American troops here past December.
But the repeated lesson of Iraqi politics is that putatively final agreements are always subject to revision. Even now, with a definitive sounding statement from the president, the two sides are continuing to discuss a continuing military relationship.
Shortly after Mr. Obama’s remarks, which were carried on Iraqi television, Gen. Babakir Zebari, the chief of staff of the Iraqi Army, who has said previously that Iraq’s security forces would need American help until 2020, said in a statement that the country still needed military trainers.
Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament and close adviser to Mr. Maliki, said in an interview that, Mr. Obama’s statement notwithstanding, not much had really changed. “As we said before, the SOFA is totally different from the trainers issue, which is still under negotiation, because we have said that there is a necessity for trainers,” he said.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta held out the possibility of keeping a small force of American military trainers in Iraq in the future, although there are no negotiations under way on numbers or a mission.
“We’re prepared to meet their training needs, we’re prepared to engage in exercises with them, we’re prepared to provide guidance and training with regard to their pilots, we’re prepared to continue to develop an ongoing relationship with them in the future,” Mr. Panetta told reporters on his plane on Friday en route to Indonesia.
On Friday evening, an American official in Iraq, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are confidential, said that negotiations would now center on arrangements that would begin next year, after all United States troops leave.
Possibilities being discussed are for some troops to return in 2012, an option preferred by some Iraqi politicians who want to claim credit for ending what many here still call an occupation, even though legally it ended years ago. Other scenarios being discussed include offering training in the United States, in a nearby country such as Kuwait, or having some troops here under NATO auspices.
Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from Baghdad, Thom Shanker from Washington, and Elisabeth Bumiller en route to Indonesia.
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