Global Policy Forum

By Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers

With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials. At the same time, the administration faces opposition from Democrats at home, who warn that the agreements that the White House seeks would bind the next president by locking in Mr. Bush's policies and a long-term military presence.

The American negotiating position for a formal military-to-military relationship, one that would replace the current United Nations mandate,is laid out in a draft proposal that was described by White House, Pentagon, State Department and military officials on ground rules of anonymity. It also includes less controversial demands that American troops be immune from Iraqi prosecution, and that they maintain the power to detain Iraqi prisoners.

However, the American quest for protections for civilian contractors is expected to be particularly vexing, because in no other country are contractors working with the American military granted protection from local laws. Some American officials want contractors to have full immunity from Iraqi law, while others envision less sweeping protections. These officials said the negotiations with the Iraqis, expected to begin next month, would also determine whether the American authority to conduct combat operations in the future would be unilateral, as it is now, or whether it would require consultation with the Iraqis or even Iraqi approval.

"These are going to be tough negotiations," said one senior Bush administration official preparing for negotiations with the Iraqis. "They're not supplicants."

Democrats in Congress, as well as the party's two leading presidential contenders, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, have accused the White House of sponsoring negotiations that will set into law a long-term security relationship with Iraq. But administration officials said that the American proposal specifically did not set future troop levels in Iraq or ask for permanent American bases there. Nor, they said, did it offer a security guarantee defining Washington's specific responsibilities should Iraq come under attack.

Including such long-term commitments in the agreement would turn the accord into a bilateral treaty, one that would require Senate approval. The Bush administration faces the political reality that it cannot count on the two-thirds vote that would be required to approve a treaty with Iraq setting out such a military commitment.

Administration officials are describing their draft proposal in terms of a traditional status-of-forces agreement, an accord that has historically been negotiated by the executive branch and signed by the executive branch without a Senate vote. "I think it's pretty clear that such an agreement would not talk about force levels," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday. "We have no interest in permanent bases. I think the way to think about the framework agreement is an approach to normalizing the relationship between the United States and Iraq."

While the United States currently has military agreements with more than 80 countries around the world, including Japan, Germany, South Korea and a number of Iraq's neighbors, none of those countries are at war. And none has a population outraged over civilian deaths at the hands of armed American security contractors who are not answerable to Iraqi law.

Democratic critics have complained that the initial announcement about the administration's intention to negotiate an agreement, made Nov. 26, included an American pledge to support Iraq "in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats." Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that what the administration was negotiating amounted to a treaty and should be subjected to Congressional oversight and ultimately ratification.

"Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?" he said Wednesday at a hearing of a foreign affairs subcommittee held to review the matter. "This could very well implicate our military forces in a full-blown civil war in Iraq. If a commitment of this magnitude does not rise to the level of a treaty, then it is difficult to imagine what could."

Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, who raised concerns in a letter to the White House in December, said the negotiations were an unprecedented step toward making an agreement on status of forces without the overarching security guarantees like those provided in the NATO treaty. He added that the Democratic majority would seek to block any agreements with the Iraqis, unless the administration was clear about its ultimate intentions in Iraq.

"There's no exit strategy, because the administration doesn't have one," Senator Webb said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "By entering this agreement, they avoid a debate and they validate their unspoken strategy."

Over recent days, administration officials acknowledged that the language of the Nov. 26 announcement went too far. The officials said that they were limiting the scope of the pending negotiations to issues that could be resolved this year, before the Security Council resolution expired.

To that end, administration officials said the draft text was narrowly written to codify what the administration regarded as four essential requirements for the American armed forces to continue the mission in Iraq.

In seeking immunity for contractors, the administration is requesting protections for the 154,000 civilian contractors working for the Defense Department in Iraq; most carry out such duties as driving trucks, preparing meals and the like. The administration says it depends heavily on those contractors, including about 13,000 private security contractors working for the Pentagon.

Under an earlier agreement between the United States and Iraq, those contractors have been exempt from Iraqi law. Justice Department officials have said it is not clear whether any crimes committed by contractors in Iraq, including the role played by Blackwater employees in a September shooting in Baghdad, would be subject to American law, but the administration has taken steps intended to close any loopholes.

In seeking authority to conduct combat operations, the Bush administration is seeking something similar to the current United Nations Security Council resolution, which allows the United States and other coalition forces to operate in Iraq "in support of mutual goals," one Bush administration official said.

The official said the agreement sought by the United States could allow Iraq to "rescind that authority at a later date as the security environment improves and they take over the mission."

In contrast to the contractors, the immunity being sought for American military personnel is a standard part of most recent agreements for basing American forces on foreign soil. Such agreements grant exclusive jurisdiction over American forces to American law, specifically the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In terms of prisoners, the administration and military would like the Iraqis eventually to take control of all battlefield detainees. But they say that the United States still needs the authority to hold those prisoners, because Baghdad does not yet have the capacity — in personnel, facilities or legal structures — to manage the current detainee population of about 26,000.

Senior administration officials say concerns that the agreement will limit the decisions of the next president are not justified. "More than 90 percent of this will be a pretty standard status-of-forces agreement," said one senior official involved in drafting the American proposal. "It is not something that will tie the hands of the next president."

The military-to-military aspect of the relationship is to be negotiated by July 31, well ahead of the Dec. 31 expiration date for the United Nations Security Council Resolution that has been the core legal authority for the American-led military mission in Iraq. Diplomats will also negotiate political and economic relations between the two countries.

The draft American text on military-to-military relations, now under discussion at the White House, Pentagon and State Department, is short, running fewer than 15 pages.

"It's not ‘War and Peace,' and it doesn't have a lot of hard-to-read legal jargon," said one military officer. American officials are keenly aware that any agreement must be approved by Iraq's fractured Council of Representatives, where Sunni and Shiite factions feud and even Shiite blocs loyal to competing leaders cannot agree.