Whacking Iraq--"Not Defined" and "Doesn't Mean Anything"
Iraqis Condemn American Demands Sides Negotiating U.S. Military Role
By Amit R. Paley and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, June 11, 2008; A01
BAGHDAD, June 10 -- High-level negotiations over the future role of the U.S. military in Iraq have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate, with Iraqi politicians denouncing what they say are U.S. demands to maintain nearly 60 bases in their country indefinitely.
. . . "What the U.S. wants is to take the current status quo and try to regulate it in a new agreement. And what we want is greater respect for Iraqi sovereignty," said Haider al-Abadi, a parliament member from Maliki's Dawa party. "Signing the agreement would mean that the Iraqi government had given up its sovereignty by its own consent. And that will never happen."
. . . Iraqi officials said the U.S. government also demanded the continuation of several current policies: authority to detain and hold Iraqis without turning them over to the Iraqi jud…