The United States and Iraq are opening negotiations in Baghdad on a blueprint for a long-term relationship, plus a narrower deal to define the legal basis for a U.S. troop presence, a Pentagon official said Friday.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the talks are scheduled to start today.
Leading the U.S. negotiating team will be Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. He will be assisted by senior officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House's National Security Council.
Morrell said the U.S. expects a lengthy negotiation, with a goal of completing a deal by December, when the U.N. Security Council resolution that now governs the U.S. and coalition presence in Iraq will expire.
The process of negotiating a long-term deal with the Iraqi government has triggered criticism from some in Congress, in part because the administration's position is that the deal will not require congressional approval and in part out of concern that it might commit to a specific U.S. troop level.
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Morrell would not discuss specifics of the U.S. negotiating position.
"Like in any negotiation, the to-ing and fro-ing that inevitably will go on will go on behind closed doors," he said.
Morrell said the deal sought by the administration "does not seek permanent bases; will not in any way codify the number of troops that will remain in Iraq; it will not tie the hands of a future commander in chief; it will not require Senate ratification, but we will make every effort to keep Congress apprised of progress in these talks."
Double bombing
The death toll rose Friday to 68 from twin bombings whose blows reverberated beyond the body count, showing that insurgents can still bring bloodshed into the heart of Baghdad and rattle the fragile confidence that is returning nightlife and commerce to parts of the battered city.
The U.S. military blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for the Thursday attack, one of the deadliest so far this year. It had all the signs of the radical Sunni group's previous assaults on Shiite civilians.
It also struck in an area of high symbolic importance — the Karradah neighborhood — which has bounced back as one of Baghdad's most vibrant commercial districts and also a stronghold for the country's most powerful Shiite political party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
The attack came on a beautiful evening, and the streets were packed with shoppers and young people mingling at the start of the Iraqi weekend.
A bomb hidden under a vendor stall exploded first, and then in the chaos that followed a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt detonated, Mohammed al-Rubaie, the head of the Karradah municipality, told the state-run Al-Iraqiya TV.
U.S. toll in Iraq
• Deaths: 3,974
• Wounded: 29,320
Latest identifications
• No casualties identified Friday.
Source: Department of Defense
