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The US can quit Iraq, or it can stay. But it can't do both

Patrick Cockburn has reported from and written extensively on Iraq. He is really only one of a handful who can speak with any degree of authority about what is now such a war-torn and devastated country.

In his latest posting on The Independent, Cockburn deals with the Iraqi secret service and who funds it:

"The history of the Iraqi intelligence service is important because it shows the real distribution of power in Iraq rather than the spurious picture presented by President Bush. It explains why so many Iraqis are suspicious of the security accord, or Status of Forces Agreement, that the White House has been pushing the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Malki to sign. It reveals the real political landscape where President-elect Barack Obama will soon have to find his bearings.

For all Mr Bush's pious declarations about respecting Iraqi sovereignty, General Shahwani is reported to work primarily for American intelligence. The intelligence service is "not working for the Iraqi government – it's working for the CIA," Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful Shia lawmaker, was quoted as saying three years ago. "I prefer to call it the American Intelligence of Iraq, not the Iraqi Intelligence Service."

"It seems that not much has changed since then. The intelligence service does now appear in the Iraqi budget as being in receipt of $150 million, though this seems somewhat measly given the extent of its operations, which includes running paramilitary units. One of its main missions is to spy on Iranians on behalf of the US, employing much the same cadre of intelligence officers who carried out this task for Saddam Hussein."

And:

"John McCain claimed absurdly that the US was on the verge of victory, and during his visits to the Green Zone his staffers annoyed US embassy officials by requesting them not to wear helmets and body armour when standing next the candidate. McCain's people feared this might undermine in the eyes of American television viewers their candidate's claim that US prospects in Iraq were rosier than had been reported.

The key to the US conducting an orderly retreat from Iraq is that this retreat should be real and the US should not try to control essential Iraqi state institutions like the intelligence service. It is also crucial that Obama seriously negotiate with the Iranians. So long as the Iranian leadership thinks that Iraq might be the launching pad for an attack on Iran it will never be in Iranian interests for Iraq to be stabilised.

The same is true of Syria. A problem for Obama is that McCain's quite false claim that America's position in Iraq has become stronger has been largely accepted by the US media so any compromise with Iran can be portrayed as a sell-out."

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