Truest statement of the week

I-I read them last fall [Status Of Forces Agreement and the Stragic Framework] when they were, I think, wrongly categorized as "restricted information" -- where you had to go to a room to read a couple of documents that were not even classified because the previous administration, in my view, was trying to keep this issue away from the public debate. I re-read them again, about ten days ago, and I'm an old-legislative-council, words are very important to me. You've been through this many times and I also notice in your testimony and in the phraseology that's now being used we're talking -- you are talking, the administration is talking more about the drawing down of forces rather than the withdrawal of forces. And I think -- I think that's a pretty important distinction when looking at the verbage in this agreement. My concern is this: I was among a number of people -- the chairman [John Kerry], I know, also was, Vice President [Joe] Biden was one -- who was saying an agreement of such magnitude should have had the approval of the United States Congress. Whether or not it was raised to the level of a treaty, it certainly should have had the approval of the United States Congress. It required the approval of the Iraqi Parliament. And yet because of all the machinations and the presidential campaign, the business of the Congress, this agreement was basically done through executive signatories. It wasn't brought before the Congress at all. Now if you go and read this agreement -- and this is, if you're not familiar enough in detail to give me an answer today, I really would like to hear what the administration thinks. If you read this agreement in toto -- if you take Articles 2, 24, 27 and 30 and read them with the defintional phrases against each other, there really seems to be quite loose language when we're talking about a full withdrawal by the end of 2011. Just very briefly and I appreciate that the chairman will allow me a possibly couple of minutes over [overlapping, Commitee Chair John Kerry tells him to take the time he needs] but hopefully not. In the "Defintion of Terms" a "member of the United States forces" means any member who is a member of the United States Army, Navy, Airforce, Marine Corps. Any individual. Now if you read that against Article 24, I'm not going to go into detail through all the phraseology, it says, "All United States forces shall withdraw from Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011." I -- I am of the understanding, although I was not a participant, that that at one time said all United States forces "must withdraw" but now says "shall withdraw" -- "All United States forces shall withdraw no later than December 31, 2011." If you then look at Article 27 there are two fairly lengthy paragraphs that I'm not going to quote in total but they basically talk about if there is any external or internal threat to Iraqi soverignty, political independence -- some very loose language -- that we will take appropriate measures. And it also says there will be close cooperation training, equipping, etc. And finally, if you read all of that against Article 30, it says -- and this is important because of the way we came to this agreement -- it's important to me, anyway, as a legislature: "This agreement shall be amended only with the official agreement of the parties in writing and in accordance with the Constitutional procedures in effect in both countries." Well the argument can now be made that, since the Congress was not a part of the approval of the document, that an executive agreement, a signature in the same form as the way this agreement was signed, could basically say "Okay, we're not going to be out of there by December 2011. December 31, 2011" And in listening to the discussions with respect to residual forces and this sort of thing, I -- I'm not really hearing clearly that it's the intention of the administration to have a complete withdrawal of all United States forces by December 31, 2011.



-- US Senator Jim Webb addressing Chris Hill (nominated to be Ambassador to Iraq) at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Wednesday. (See Thursday's snapshot for the entire exchange.)