During the press conference announcing his national security team on Dec. 1, President-elect Barack Obama praised the strategic framework and status of forces agreement (SOFA) approved last week by the Iraqi parliament.
His position on the legitimacy of the deals, however, is more complicated.
Though the record suggests otherwise, Obama’s transition team now insists that he never said Congress must vote to approve an agreement between the two countries.
As the Democratic presidential candidate, however, Obama suggested that congressional approval of an agreement is required. “Obama and Biden also believe that any security accord must be subject to Congressional approval,” his campaign Web site still says. “It is unacceptable that the Iraqi government will present the agreement to the Iraqi parliament for approval — yet the Bush administration will not do the same with the U.S. Congress.”
In September, Obama campaing spokeswoman Wendy Morigi told ABC News that “Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi parliament.”
Obama also cosponsored a year-old bill (S 2426) by Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., now secretary of State-designate, that would block funds to implement any deal involving “commitments or risks affecting the nation as a whole” unless the Senate approves it as a treaty.
With President Bush threatening to veto any such measure, Clinton’s bill never saw action. Democrats, however, did get a provision into the fiscal 2009 defense authorization law (PL 110-417) that requires that the agreement be submitted to Congress for “review,” but not approval.
Now, Obama’s transition Web site says: “Any SOFA should be subject to Congressional review to ensure it has bipartisan support here at home.” Obama has praised the agreement because it sets a timetable for U.S. redeployment out of Iraq, albeit at a slower pace than he wants.
Compounding the confusion surrounding the issue is the Iraqi parliament’s approval of two separate agreements — a strategic framework, which establishes relations between the two countries; and the status of forces agreement, which deals specifically with the U.S. military presence in Iraq. It has not always been clear which one Obama and his aides have been referring to. They also have used words such as congressional “review,” “vetting,” and “approval” interchangably, further obscuring their specific meaning.
For example, when asked in October about his discussions with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about a strategic framework agreement, Obama said he told the Iraqi leader that “he should not expect the next administration to be bound by agreements that are not presented and vetted before Congress and representatives of the American people.”
Technically, that’s not calling for a vote, but it does suggest there could be a situation in which Obama might revisit the agreement.
— Adam Graham-Silverman
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