Iraq denounces Syria raid, seeks US pact changes

Iraq drew up amendments yesterday that it will demand of the US in a bid to salvage an agreement allowing US forces to remain beyond the end of this year.

Baghdad also issued a belated rebuke of Washington for a helicopter strike on Syria, a sign of the pressure Iraq's government is under to reassure its neighbours that it is not letting US forces use its territory against them.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will now send US negotiators the proposed amendments to the security deal, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

Washington and Baghdad have been scrambling to get the bilateral pact in place to provide a legal basis for the US presence after a UN mandate ends on Dececember 31, but it was held up last week when Baghdad said it would demand changes.

Mr Dabbagh did not provide details of the proposed amendments. Asked if they covered just the wording of the deal, he said: "the wording, yes, and some of the content."

But a Cabinet member indicated that the proposed changes would not require the pact's main points to be renegotiated.

"The most important changes are in those articles which could be interpreted in more than one way," Environment Minister Nermeen Othman, who attended the Cabinet meeting, said. "We worked to avoid any ambiguity."

The pact already includes a number of key concessions to Baghdad, such as a 2011 withdrawal date and a mechanism for Iraq to try US troops for major crimes committed while off duty. Mr Othman said the proposed amendments would not alter the pact's wording on the issue of legal jurisdiction over US troops.

US officials said they had not yet seen the proposed changes, but they have made clear that they are reluctant to make substantial revisions to a text hammered out over months.

The future of the foreign military presence remains sharply divisive for Iraq's political class more than five years after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.