Democrats Need to Push Bill Prohibiting Bush From Making Iraq Committments Beyond 2008

A development that most Americans may not be aware of is the Bush Administration's desire to enter into an agreement with the Iraqis allowing the US to stay in Iraq indefinitely. This plan is referred to by the Bush Administration as U.S.-Iraq Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation and you read a summary here. The reason why this is supposedly needed is that the United Nations mandate under which the United States is operating in Iraq ends in December of 2008. The Iraqis don't want to extend that mandate. Rather they want to replace it with this agreement between the US and Iraq.

Note that the Bush Administration is not entering into a treaty with the Iraqis. Why? Because such a treaty would be subject to Senate confirmation. The whole point here is to avoid going to Congress to get authorization for this move.

Here is how Lute described this agreement at a news conference in November:

As Dana just mentioned, today is an important day for us on the Iraq team, because President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq signed an important document that frames our emerging strategic relationship with Iraq. This so-called Declaration of Principles has its roots in the Iraqi leader's requests for a long-term bilateral relationship in their communique of August 26th. So the root here really goes back to this communique of 26 August.

The day after that, the President accepted the Iraqi request in concept, and today's document is now the first of a three-step process that actually codifies this mutual decision for a long-term partnership. The next step is that we'll look to renew the United Nations Security Council mandate for yet another year. This is actually required on its renewal date by 31 December.

And then in the course of 2008, the two countries, the United States and Iraq, will codify formally our bilateral relationship with, as we're calling it, the strategic framework agreement. Today's declaration outlines the main parts of what we expect that emerging agreement to contain. There should be a political-diplomatic segment, there will be a segment dealing with economic affairs, and then a security segment.

Today's agreement is not binding, but rather it's a mutual statement of intent that will be used to frame our formal negotiations in the course of the upcoming year. It's not a treaty, but it's rather a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations. Think of today's agreement as setting the agenda for the formal bilateral negotiations that will take place in the course of '08.

This is what the Bush Administration wants to do in Iraq: Enter into this agreement which will put pressure on the next administration to continue to follow the agreement. If the next president ditches this agreement, which he or she would have the legal right to do, he or she will be accused on breaking out commitment to Iraq. If anything happens after that, the next administration will get the blame.

The way to avoid this trap is to pass legislation prohibiting Bush from entering into any agreement with Iraq that continues beyond noon on January 20, 2009. Such legislation is easy to explain to the American people. The administration that has botched up Iraq shouldn't have the power to bind the hands of the next administration. If Republicans try to filibuster the bill, so much the better. It links them to Bush's Iraq policy, which most people don't support. There is little political risk in opposing Bush on this, but there could be big political risk in not opposing him.