Iraq parliament scrambles to agree on U.S. troop pact

By Tim Cocks

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers prepared for a grueling round of talks on Thursday over a long-awaited pact setting a deadline for U.S. troops to leave the country.

Parliament had been scheduled to vote on the security agreement on Wednesday, but wrangling pushed it back a day.

The landmark deal will pave the way for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2011, bringing in sight an end to a U.S. military presence that has lingered on since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Once-dominant minority Sunni Arabs are concerned the U.S. departure may dilute their influence in the Shi'ite-led country and have listed reforms they want adopted before they approve it.

Legislators agreed to meet a demand from the two main Sunni blocs that the pact be put to a referendum next year.

But they rejected other conditions, including reforms that would cease the hunting down and trying of former members of Saddam's Baath party and a pledge to abolish the tribunal that condemned the dictator to death.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government and its Kurdish partners, who together hold most of Iraq's 275 parliamentary seats, could probably push the pact through by themselves, but Maliki's government needs a broad consensus to satisfy Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

"What Sistani's trying to do is get as many people in there as possible so when it is signed, it marginalizes the radical voices against it," said Toby Dodge, an Iraq specialist at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Those voices include followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who oppose a deal with the Americans and have vowed to fight it.

Cabinet has approved the pact and signed with Washington, but Iraqis remain in suspense as parliamentary debates rage on.

The deal, replacing a U.N. mandate, gives Iraq authority over U.S. troops, makes them liable for some crimes committed when they are off-duty, and reins in private security firms.

The 150,000-odd American troops in Iraq will have to quit the towns by mid-2009, and leave the country by the end of 2011.

That will boost Maliki, who will get three more years of U.S. support while claiming accolades for ending the occupation.

(Editing by Charles Dick)