Iraq: We will not be war launch pad

Iraq’s Foreign Minister says a joint US-Iraqi security treaty would not make the country a ‘launch-pad’ for other US wars in the region.

“The security agreement with the US says Iraq will not be used as a launch pad for attacks against other countries,” Zebari said in a joint press conference with his American counterpart Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad.

Zebari’s remarks came amid speculations that the controversial deal would give the United States a free hand to use Iraq as a logistic base for waging further wars in the region.

article continues below

Washington has been pushing through the treaty which would determine the legal basis for the presence of US troops in the country after their UN mandate expires in December 2008.

No details of the bilateral negotiations on the treaty have been released but the two countries’ negotiators said that they had agreed to the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq by the end of 2011.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Based on leaked information, the treaty would grant US troops –at least in some degrees– immunity from legal prosecution in Iraq.

The deal has caused uproar among Iraqi religious and political figures who consider it as an infringement of the country’s sovereignty.