President Bush announced Tuesday that he would withdraw 8,000 troops from Iraq by February of next year. He also called for a “quiet surge” in the number of US troops in Afghanistan. The President outlined his plan in a speech at the Naval War College.

President Bush.

Democratic Presidential nominee senator Barack Obama criticized President Bush for keeping troop levels in Iraq largely unchanged. Speaking in Ohio Tuesday the Senator said: “In the absence of a timetable to remove our combat brigades, we will continue to give Iraq’s leaders a blank check instead of pressing them to reconcile their differences.”
But neither Senator Obama nor President Bush made reference to a recently leaked draft of an Iraqi-US agreement that outlines the long-term status of US forces in Iraq. Iraqi blogger and political analyst Raed Jarrar has read and translated the leaked document. He says the agreement does not set a deadline for the withdrawal of non-combat US troops in Iraq.

Raed Jarrar, Iraqi blogger, political analyst and architect. he is a consultant to the American Friends Service Committee’s Iraq program in Washington DC.

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