ZEBARI & OBAMA ON THE SAME PAGE

(Pretty much.) Obama wants us out in about 16 months and Foreign Minister Zebari said that the new security arragment would be for no more than 24 months

Iraq demands pullout timetable in US defence pact talks
Jul 7 11:02 AM US/Eastern
AFP

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that Washington has agreed to one key demand from Baghdad, the scrapping of immunity from prosecution in Iraq of the tens of thousands of foreign security contractors operating in the country.

Since the 2003 invasion, foreign security firms have operated virtually outside the law, neither subject to the Iraq legal system nor to US military tribunals -- an exemption which has been a persistent source of outrage to ordinary Iraqis.

Last Wednesday, Zebari said if the new US security pact were not finalised by July 31, there were two options for Iraq.

One is to enter into a substitute bilateral agreement, the other to request the UN to extend its mandate by another year, he said.

Zebari stressed that the United States could not stay in Iraq without an international legal framework, while any security arrangement would be for "one or two years" only, and not for decades.