Iraqi PM says U.S. pact will restore sovereignty

By Wisam Mohammed and Khaled al-Ansary

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A pact allowing U.S. troops to stay in Iraq three more years is Iraq's best option for restoring sovereignty, and its critics are making unrealistic demands, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday.

Iraq and the United States signed the agreement on Monday, but it must first pass in the Iraqi parliament to take effect. A vote is expected next week before lawmakers recess for holiday.

It requires the roughly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to leave by the end of 2011, a timetable Washington accepted only after months of intense negotiations.

Addressing journalists while a rancorous debate over the pact raged in parliament, Maliki said those opposed would leave Iraq with an even worse alternative: extending the existing U.N. mandate for U.S. troops that gives them power to raid and detain suspects without Iraqi government consent.

"Some are chanting slogans saying it is a degrading pact and will shackle the Iraqi will," Maliki said. "But the extension would be the real shackle on its will."

Maliki said the pact regulates the U.S. military's "activities and limits its authority."

"It can't arrest anyone without an Iraqi arrest warrant ... but currently, it is arresting and running prisons without asking the Iraqi government. Which one is better?" he said.

The main political groups in Maliki's ruling coalition have lined up behind the pact, but followers of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr oppose it and Sunni Arab groups have reservations, arguing it should be put to a referendum.

Parliament held a chaotic session to discuss the pact on Thursday. Legislators loyal to Sadr bashed tables and shouted in order to disrupt a second reading of the document. On Wednesday Sadrist lawmakers scuffled in the house with bodyguards of Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.

"CHANCE"

The speaker of parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, who is a member of the main Sunni Arab bloc in parliament, the Accordance Front, said Sunnis saw the pact as reasonable, and would approve it if Maliki's government accepts a list of demands they had sent him.

The demands included progress on the release of Iraqi prisoners, mostly Sunni Arab insurgents, under an amnesty law.

Maliki told journalists some of those demands were unreasonable and not relevant to the pact, including a demand to disband the criminal court that tried Saddam Hussein.

"One of the concerns they raise is that the pact won't be respected," Maliki said. "I assure you it will be."

Despite opposition, Foreign Minister Zebari said the pact could still go through.