I've not seen this diaried and it's a critically important story that needs to be told. This will be short and sweet, I strongly recommend clicking through to the NPR article for all the details. It is deeply concerning.
The Bush administration is seeking... no has found and is working on a defacto treaty with Iraq that would obligate a large US military presence for decades to come. This so called "Declaration of Principals" would be binding on future US presidents so that they could not orchestrate a pullout or significant reduction of our troops. It would include a permanent and massive US military presence including permanent Military bases
The bush admimistration is attempting to cloak the deal by calling it an "Agreement" instead of a Treaty so that it won't require ratification by the US Senate (all treaties with foreign nations must be ratified by the senate), but even the Iraqi's are calling it a Treaty.
This from NPR this morning:
For their part, Iraqi leaders aren't mincing words. They call the upcoming agreement a treaty. At a recent press conference in Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called it a "long-term treaty."
And nobody should be under any illusions of the scope and durations of this "agreement".
"The declaration of principles would appear to commit the United States to keeping the elected Iraqi government in power against internal threats," says Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service. "I leave it to the lawyers to determine whether that's the definition of a treaty or not but it certainly seems to be — is going to be — a hefty U.S. commitment to Iraq for a long time."
There is much more in the article and I strongly recommend a good thorough read of it. The link again.
UPDATE 01/24/2008 11:20AM MST by MaverickModerate
A few posters have raised the hopeful and legitimate point that this agreement may not be binding on future adminstrations or by congress. I share the hope, but what alarmed me about this was something that is not stated in the printed article but was brought up in Steve Inskeep's interview. The audio of that interview is available as a link at the top of the article by the way. Anyhow towards the end of the discussion Inskeep asks about this point. The answer given is (paraphrasing now as memory is not precise) that traditionally these types of agreements are maintained by congress and the next administration as it can be injurious to US reputation to not honor them. An example of repercussions due to the Vietname pullout is given.
Now I'm not an expert on that, but the thrust seems to be that it won't be a trivial matter to extracate ourselves from one of these agreements and considerable doubt is cast on whether it would be practical to attempt to do so. Personally, I find it rather concerning and would prefer that we not get into a situation where we have to test that in the first place. So in my opinion, concern over this issue is legitimate.