Have you ever noticed how sometimes a crucial issue in the Iraq war will go utterly unreported in the US press? Well, the barely-breathing Bush Administration has been negotiating with its Iraqi sock-puppets. What do they want? To stay in Iraq for a very long time with “broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military official” according to a NYTimes report in January (the last time the issue was noticed by the newspaper of record).

Now, many Iraqis are preparing to protest what they see as a surrender of national sovereignty and what I see as a Bush-Cheney end run around electoral defeat in November and Congressional opposition. The “Status of Forces Agreement” opposed by all but US Government bought & paid for “officials” provides a framework for Mr. McCain’s plan to keep Iraq occupied until our great-grandchildren retire.

Al Jazeera noted that “Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's influential Shia cleric, has called for mass protests on Friday unless the Iraqi government abandons the proposed deal. And last week Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, also reportedly expressed his anger, saying he would not permit the Iraqi government to sign a deal with "US occupiers" as long as he lived.”

Will you, I and our elected officials allow Mr. Bush to make a deal allowing for the long-term stationing of troops in Iraq? Is it time to say "enough?"

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