Today, the House held a hearing featuring two members of the
Iraqi Parliament in order “to hear their assessment of the
proposed U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement,” an agreement proposed
by the Bush administration permitting combat forces in Iraq for
an unspecified period of time. Iraq is currently seeing “growing
and widespread protests…over the scope of the agreement.”
In the hearing, parliamentarians Nadeem Al-Jaberi and Khalaf
Al-Ulayyan expressed their support for a timetable for withdrawal
of U.S. troops. In an exchange with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Al-Jaberi
said that U.S. presence in Iraq is highly unpopular with the public,
as roughly 70 percent of Iraqis favor a withdrawal:
PAUL: What percent of the Iraqi people would agree with us
leaving under those circumstances?
AL-JABERI: I ask you to perhaps have a referendum, and that
will tell you the truth.
PAUL: So you have no idea. You have no idea. Maybe only 5 percent
would support us leaving. You have to have an idea.
AL-JABERI: Of course not. The majority of the people of Iraq
are with the withdrawal. … Perhaps even about 70 percent.
Watch it:
(Article continues below)
Given the Iraqis’ opposition to U.S. forces, Paul asked
how the public perceives the 104-acre, $700 million U.S. embassy
in Baghdad, which consists of 27 buildings and 3,000 employees.
Jaberi ripped its massive scale:
AL-JABERI: It is certainly larger than the diplomatic mission
for which it has arrived for. … I mean why do we need
3,000 employees in an embassy in Iraq if we consider it as a
diplomatic mission like any other diplomatic mission? From the
principle of reciprocity, would it be appropriate for Iraqis
to establish a 3,000 employee embassy in Washington? …
It [the embassy] certainly would not be a very positive signal
to the Iraqi people.
Al-Jaberi also criticized the enclosed nature of embassy activities,
which sits in the heavily-fortified Green Zone: “And yes,
there is some procrastination in its relationship with the society,
because its relations are limited to the Green Zone.”
Update: Spencer Ackerman notes that al-Ulayyan, when asked about
the invasion of Iraq, remarked: "I would prefer if it didn't
happen, because it led to the destruction of the country. The
U.S. got rid of one person. It put in hundreds of persons that
are worse than Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, now Iran is going
into Iraq, and this is under the umbrella of the United States."
Update: Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) also released a letter today
from 31 Iraqi legislators "asserting that the proposed [long-term
security] agreement is opposed by a majority of the parliament
if it does not include a specific timetable for the withdrawal
of U.S. military troops."
