BAGHDAD (AFP) — The Iraqi cabinet on Tuesday authorised Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to negotiate changes in the security pact with Washington that sets a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the cabinet approved "necessary and essential changes" to be incorporated in the deal and authorised Maliki to present them to the American side.
"Maliki is now in charge of presenting this new text to the American side," Environment Minister Nermeen Othman, who attended the meeting, told AFP.
On Tuesday, the White House was wary of making any changes.
"We have not received any changes from the Iraqis. We think this is a good agreement, therefore the bar will be high," spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Dabbagh said the changes sought in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) were based on "opinions of the main political entities" and aimed at arriving at a deal that "preserves the sovereignty of Iraq and its national interests."
The cabinet last week decided to seek changes to the deal, the latest draft of which stipulates that American forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 2009 and from the country by December 2011.
The draft also offers powers to the Iraqis to prosecute American soldiers and civilians for "serious crimes" committed outside their bases and when off-duty.
Iraqi lawmaker Mahmud Othman said these powers were not enough and Iraqis must be able to prosecute US soldiers for crimes committed during operations.
"What happens if incidents like Haditha occur again?" he asked, referring to the massacre of 24 Iraqis in 2005 in Haditha in Iraq's Anbar province allegedly by US marines who went on a rampage after a comrade was killed by a bomb.
Othman said Baghdad was also expected to change the title of the deal to something like "Agreement for Withdrawal of American Forces."
Last week the White House said that the agreement, which has been the subject of months of tough negotiations, was more or less done, and that any amendments would be mere fine-tuning.
But Baghdad warned that it would not be bullied into signing, despite US warnings of potentially dire consequences if it failed to approve the deal.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari later said Washington has agreed to listen to the requested changes.
The deal has to be finalised before December when the current UN mandate that acts as the legal basis for the presence of American forces in Iraq expires.
Iraqi leaders such as radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have opposed the deal.
The cabinet also denounced Sunday's raid by US forces inside neighbouring Syria which a furious Damascus termed a "terrorist" act that killed eight civilians.
In a separate statement, Dabbagh took a hardline stand against the US action and said Baghdad would launch an investigation.
"The Iraqi government rejects the US helicopter strike on Syrian territory, considering that Iraq's constitution does not allow its land to be a base for launching attacks on neighbouring countries," he said.
On Monday, Dabbagh had said the attack was against a border area used by insurgents to launch attacks against Iraq.
Dabbagh also urged Syria to stop groups using its territory "for training and sending terrorists for attacks on Iraq and its people."
Parliament also denounced the strike, saying it came at a time when relations between Baghdad and its neighbours were "progressing."
In the first confirmed US action of its kind inside Syrian territory, a US official in Washington said the head of a network smuggling arms and foreign fighters into Iraq, Abu Ghadiya, was killed in the raid.
Washington says Syria has long turned a blind eye to foreign fighters crossing into Iraq from its border to fuel the anti-US insurgency.
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