- Joined
- Apr 9, 2014
- Messages
- 18,101
- Reaction score
- 28,796
- Points
- 113
- Location
- The nearest Steelers bar.
You are incorrect. The status of forces agreement was to be re-negotiated once a new President took office in 2009. However, Obama ****** up the process, even after Iraq had agreed to 10,000 U.S. forces remaining in the country after 2011.
Negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq for a new SOFA began in fall 2010. There were late-night meetings at the fortified compound of then Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and in video conferences between Baghdad and Washington. In June 2011, diplomats and Iraqi officials said that President Obama had told Prime Minister Maliki that he was prepared to leave up to 10,000 soldiers to continue training and equipping the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). Mr. Maliki agreed, but said he needed time to line up political allies. Eventually, he gained authorization to continue talks with the U.S. on keeping troops in Iraq.
In August 2011, after debates between the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, the U.S. settled on the 3,000 to 5,000 troop number. An American official said intelligence assessments stated that Iraq was not at great risk of slipping into chaos in the absence of American forces, which was a factor in the decision.
In October 2011, American officials pressed Iraqi leadership to meet again at President Talabani’s compound to discuss the issue. This time the U.S. asked Iraq to take a stand on the question of immunity for troops, hoping to remove what had always been the biggest challenge. However, they misread Iraqi politics and the Iraqi public. Having watched the Arab Spring sweep across the region and still haunted by the traumas of this and previous wars, the Iraqis were unwilling to accept anything that infringed on their sovereignty.
Iraqi leadership picked up on that sentiment quickly. As a result, they publicly said they would not support legal immunity for any American troops. Some American officials have privately said that pushing for that meeting — in essence forcing the Iraqis to take a public stand on such a controversial matter before working out the politics of presenting it to their constituents and to Parliament — was a severe tactical mistake that ended any possibility of keeping American troops past December 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.–...2011_decision_to_withdraw_all_American_forces
When Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited a plan that President George W. Bush forged in 2008 with then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. That Status of Forces Agreement called for the withdrawal of all American troops by the end of 2011. It was widely assumed a new plan would be negotiated after the 2008 version expired in 2011. There were no stipulations about a specific number of American military personnel to be left behind.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...refused-sign-plan-place-leave-10000-troops-i/
I get that you want to believe Obama when the **** hit the fan in the Middle East, and Bammy turned to his tried-and-true excuse - blame Bush. However, the fact of the matter is that both Iraq and the United States believed that the U.S. would leave troops in Iraq, as they did in Germany, and Japan, and Korea.
There is one, and only one, reason why those troops were not in Iraq to prevent ISIS from capturing cities, stealing oil, selling it, taking captives, etc. and that reason is Obama.
