Iraq's Sadr calls for protest against U.S. forces

27 May 2008 18:11:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, May 27 (Reuters) - Anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a mass protest on Friday against negotiations between Washington and Baghdad on keeping U.S. troops in the country beyond 2008.

"We invite Iraqis to join us for a mass demonstration after Friday prayers unless the government cancels this agreement," Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf on Tuesday.

He said the protests would continue nationwide until the government agreed to hold a referendum on the continued U.S. presence. Sadr pulled his bloc out of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government last year in protest at his refusal to negotiate a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Sadr called for a million-strong march against the U.S. presence in April but later called it off for security reasons.

The United States is negotiating with Iraq on a Status of Forces Agreement aimed at giving a legal basis to U.S. troops after Dec. 31, when their United Nations mandate expires.

The United States, which invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, now has 155,000 troops in Iraq.

Maliki met his top officials on Tuesday to discuss the negotiations.

Democrat lawmakers in the United States fear the new agreement will commit the U.S. military to a long-term presence in Iraq, while Iraqis such as Sadr's followers see it as a surrender of Iraq's sovereignty to an occupying force.

"We will collect a petition with signatures of the Iraqi people, who are against this deal," Sadr said.

In Najaf, Sadr's spokesman, Salah al-Ubaidi, said:

"History will not look well upon this government if it signs this agreement without consulting the people. It will put Iraq in crisis."

Sadr's protest call is likely to raise tensions with the Iraqi government, whose forces battled militants loyal to the cleric in the capital for weeks before a truce was agreed on May 10. The fighting was sparked by a government offensive against his Mehdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra in March.

Sadr is popular among Iraq's Shi'ite poor and his militia is estimated to number tens of thousands. But it has kept a low profile since Iraqi troops poured into Sadr City last week, taking control of Sadr's main Baghdad stronghold. (Reporting by Wisam Mohammed; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by David Fogarty)

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Most Iraqi political and religious authorities have already called on the government not to sign any long-term security agreement with the American occupiers as Iraq is not a sovereign state while remain occupied..
If the agreement ever to be materialised it will be honored only by those Iraqi agents who accepted to sign such a long-term committment to extend American colonisation of the country. The Americans want to remain outside the law as any truly independent Iraqi government will have to ask for compensation for the adamage done to Iraq infrastructure and for all the killing and wounding of thousands of Iraqis.

Iraqis consider any agrement signed under occupation as null and void. The occupation must end and all US agents and mercenaries must be withdrawan or face the merciless Iraqi justice.