McClatchy reports that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has reneged on the security agreement that his office negotiated with the Bush administration, and now says he will not sign it and will not submit it to parliament. Instead, it is likely that Iraq will go back to the United Nations Security Council for a further mandate of six months to a year for the multi-national forces.
Aljazeera English reports on the security pact.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Christian representative in parliament is acusing a unit of the Iraq army,which has significant numbers of Kurds, of being behind attack on Christians in Mosul that have forced thousands of Christians to flee instability.
Mark MacKinnon profiles the American University in Iraq (Sulaymaniya),
Despite all the hype about it being calm now, Iraq faces significant violence:
‘Last month, 98 Iraqi policemen were killed. On about two days out of every three, a bomb killed two or more people. Over all, those bombings killed 164 people and wounded 366 others. These and other attacks killed 500 Iraqi civilians, about 17 a day. ‘
While the Bush administration was using Abu Nidal’s presence in Baghdad to argue that the Baath government was dirty with terrorists, in fact the CIA was running him as an agent.
The headline says it all: “Mentally Unstable Soldiers Redoplyed to Iraq.”