“Mr. Maliki rejected Gates’ demand, saying that Iraq will deal with the issue based on the security pact (signed between Washington and Baghdad).”-Ali al-Dabbagh, Iraqi Government Spokesman

Iraqi officials say they did not ask the United States to keep troops past the 2011 withdraw date, in fact they say U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates “demanded” that U.S. troops stay.  According to Iraqis Gates made the demand directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

On April 7, Gates went to Iraq and made comments to U.S. troops that made it sound like the Iraqis wanted U.S. forces to stay.  Gates even made it sound like the Iraqis needed to hurry up and decide: “If folks here are going to want us to have a presence, we’re going to need to get on with it pretty quickly in terms of our planning.”

Iraqi officials now say that Gates’ visit was solely to push them to ask for the U.S. troops to stay.  There are reports that Kurds in northern Iraq asked U.S. forces to stay, but under the current U.S. security pact with Iraq, only the Iraqi parliament can ask U.S. forces to stay.  Even Kurdish officials agree with that: “It is not related to Iraq’s Kurdish officials and they have no role in the US forces’ stay or exit. It is up to the central government to decide on the issue.”-Sabah Barzandi, member of the parliament of Iraq’s Kurdistan region

Since Robert Gates made his statements, Iraqis have been demonstrating against the U.S., and direct attacks on U.S. bases have increased.  Today, April 16, thousands of Iraqis protested in Baghdad.  There were so many that officials had to open up sports stadiums to the protesters: “We have specified Al-Shaab, Kashafa and Zawraa stadiums as permitted sites for demonstrations in Baghdad…”-Major General Qassim Atta