U.S. Not Seeking Permanent Iraq Bases, Ambassador Says

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
June 6, 2008 By David Stout
WASHINGTON — The United States ambassador to Iraq dismissed any suggestion on Thursday that the Bush administration was maneuvering to set up permanent military bases in Iraq.
“I’m very comfortable saying to you, to the Iraqis, to anyone who asks, that, no indeed, we are not seeking permanent bases, either explicitly or implicitly,” the ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, said at a State Department news briefing.
Mr. Crocker commented at length, and sometimes disdainfully, on a report in The Independent of London of “a secret plan” involving 50 permanent American military bases in Iraq, American control of Iraqi airspace and continuing legal immunity for American soldiers and contractors.
“That is just flatly untrue,” he said, describing the talks on long-term relations between American and Iraqi officials as “a transparent process” and denying any “secret provisions, attachments, protocols or whatever.”
Nor, he said, are the negotiations on how many troops will remain in Iraq, and for how long, taking place with an eye on the presidential campaigning in the United States. Mr. Crocker said the talks will go beyond mere numbers of soldiers and touch on “the broad parameters of the overall bilateral relationship in every field: political, diplomatic, economic, cultural, the whole totality of the relationship.
One guideline, he said, “is full respect for Iraqi sovereignty.”
“There isn’t going to be an agreement that infringes on Iraq’s sovereignty,” he insisted. “The Iraqis are not going to accept it. And frankly, we wouldn’t want it.”
Mr. Crocker turned to humor in parrying a question on whom the Iraqis would like to see in the White House next year.
“Well, I haven’t really had any detailed discussions with the Iraqis on that,” he said. “Were they to bring it up, I would probably accuse them of outrageous interference in our domestic affairs.”
 
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