Why is that my question?
Because the the Times Online (UK) has reported today that Prime Minister al-Maliki wants a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces as part of a comprehensive peace settlement with the insurgents:
The 28-point package for national reconciliation will offer Iraqi resistance groups inclusion in the political process and an amnesty for their prisoners if they renounce violence and lay down their arms, The Times can reveal.
The Government will promise a finite, UN-approved timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq; a halt to US operations against insurgent strongholds; an end to human rights violations, including those by coalition troops; and compensation for victims of attacks by terrorists or Iraqi and coalition forces.
It will pledge to take action against Shia militias and death squads. It will also offer to review the process of “de-Baathification” and financial compensation for the thousands of Sunnis who were purged from senior jobs in the Armed Forces and Civil Service after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The deal, which has been seen by The Times, aims to divide Iraqi insurgents from foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda. It builds on months of secret talks involving Jalal al-Talabani, the Iraqi President, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador, and seven Sunni insurgent groups.
Presumably the involvement of US ambassador Khalizad is a sign that this plan has some support from within the administration, but does the President support it? Will he permit the withdrawal of our troops and the abandonment of those “permanent bases” in the Iraqi countryside, the ones we’ve paid billions to Halliburton and Bechtel, among others, to construct? Will he support a plan that in essence imports the ideas of his former rival, Senator John Kerry? Will he agree to an amnesty for insurgents who have attacked and killed US troops?
I guess we are about to find out.
