MP: US plans to bypass security pact with Iraq

A senior Iraqi parliament member warned that Washington is attempting to bypass its security pact with Baghdad and keep its forces in the country under the cover of an increase in the number of its embassy staff.\"The US embassy now has 5,000 official personnel in Iraq and it intends to boost the number of its staff to 15,000,\" Valid Harbou told FNA on Wednesday. Since the US is aware that Iraqi people won\'t accept an extension of the American forces\' deployment in their country, it has worked out such a plot to continue the occupation of Iraq after the expiration of its mission date, he added. The US military agreement signed between Baghdad and Washington at the end of November 2008 stipulates the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq by December 31, 2011 as a deadline. But, the US has been pressing senior Iraqi officials to revise their decision on the US pullout and demand Washington to keep its troops in the country beyond their scheduled departure in the yearend. Iraqi state officials as well as religious and political figures have all condemned the US attempts to extend the mission of its troops in the country. A large number of Iraqi politicians and religious leaders believe that the US is seeking to find or even create a pretext for extending its military presence in the country. Last week, a prominent member of the Iraqi parliament cautioned that the US has slowed down training of Iraq\'s security forces in a bid to find an excuse to prolong its military presence in the war-torn country. \"The US has deliberately avoided strengthening the Iraqi forces and refrained from providing them with the necessary training in an attempt to prepare the ground for extending the security deal for a number of years,\" Nabil Harbo, who is a member of al-Iraqiya Coalition, told FNA at the time. The lawmaker lashed out at the US for its inaction in fulfilling its undertakings as stipulated in the Baghdad-Washington security deal, and stressed training Iraq\'s forces is merely an excuse for a longer occupation of the country.