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Iraqi lawmakers set to endorse US pact

BAGHDAD,November 26 – Iraqi MPs are expected on Wednesday to endorse a wide-ranging accord that will allow US troops to remain another three years, despite reservations by Sunnis and fierce opposition by Shiite hardliners.

The 275-member assembly is due to vote by a show of hands on the wide-ranging accord, which would require US troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities by the end of June and from the rest of the country by the end of 2011.

The measure enjoys the support of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Kurdish alliance, and a number of independent MPs – enough for it to pass with slightly more than the requisite simple majority of 138 votes.

But deputy parliamentary speaker Khaled al-Attiya said the government and the UIA were making a last-minute push to assemble a broader coalition.

"We do not want to pass this agreement with a difference of two or three or four votes," Attiya told AFP on the eve of the vote. "For this reason there are continuing efforts to achieve a vast majority."

On Wednesday, Attiya said the assembly would convene at 3:00 pm (1200 GMT) instead of 11:00 am as originally planned, without providing further details.

But a spokesman for the National Concord Front – the main Sunni bloc with 39 votes – said lawmakers were trying to hash out an agreement to meet the bloc’s demand for political reforms related to national reconciliation.

"The reason for the delay is that the presidential committee of parliament and the presidential council have reached an agreement that includes a set of political reforms," Salim Abdullah told AFP.

"Now there is a meeting to prepare a clear framework of the decision with the agreement of the political blocs."

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The Sunni bloc had also demanded that The agreement be put to a national referendum next year, but Attiya said Tuesday that proposal was dead in the water as far as the Americans were concerned.

The agreement – the product of nearly a year of hard-nosed negotiations – was approved by Iraq’s cabinet over a week ago with support from the major blocs representing the country’s Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish communities.

Iraq won a number of concessions in the deal, including a hard timeline for withdrawal, the right to search US military cargo and the right to try US soldiers for crimes committed while they are off their bases and off-duty.

The agreement also requires that US troops obtain Iraqi permission for all military operations, and that they hand over the files of all detainees in US custody to the Iraqi authorities, who will decide their fate.

The pact also forbids US troops from using Iraq as a launch-pad or transit point for attacking another country, which may reassure Syria and Iran.

But the accord has drawn fire from certain quarters, including followers of the hardline Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who reject any agreement with the United States and who protested at the accord in Baghdad on Friday.

Attiya, who is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the government hoped to win over those who merely have "reservations" about the pact.

"(Some political blocs) have officially announced that they have reservations, but the reservations do not touch on the agreement. They are related to other things," Attiya said.

He added that the UIA and the government were willing to discuss such demands, but that the pact had to be approved well before the UN mandate currently governing the troops expires on December 31.

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But many fear that if the accord does not win a comfortable majority and the support of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, it will lack legitimacy.

"If it is not approved by a large majority it will not be good. Its credibility will be weak," Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman told AFP Tuesday.

"If the Kurds and the Shiites are the majority, and they vote for it and the others don’t, this will be a defect."

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