No exceptional measures during SOFA vote – BOC

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Baghdad Operations Command (BOC) on Tuesday said that the security measures tomorrow during the parliament’s vote over the security pact with the United States will not be exceptional. “The BOC is taking into account the worst possibilities during occasions, but there would not be any exceptional measures during the vote on the agreement,” Maj. General Qassem Atta, the official spokesman for the BOC, told IraqiNews.com. The Iraqi parliament is holding a session on Wednesday to vote over the security agreement with the United States after debates on the first and second readings on it were completed. On November 16, 2008, the Iraqi cabinet last week had approved with an overwhelming majority of 27 votes to one the security pact between Iraq and the United States, also known as the status of forces agreement (SOFA), and was referred to Parliament for voting. SOFA should legalize the presence of U.S. forces on Iraqi territories after the end of this year, when the deadline given for a UN Security Council mandate for the U.S. army to intervene in Iraq is scheduled to expire. SOFA had drawn wide-scale local popular and political controversy after the cabinet endorsed it on last week, particularly from the Sadrist bloc of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. In accordance with the Iraqi constitution, SOFA cannot be effective before the parliament approves it. Atta said it is possible that “terrorist groups and criminal gangs would carry out armed operations in an attempt to mar the voting or the citizens following the process up but the BOC has its special measures of detecting and thwarting these operations”. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had agreed on Monday on the need to intensify contacts in order to pass SOFA, which they deemed as a sure guarantee to maintain national sovereignty and protect Iraq’s funds. AmR (S) 1