The AP reports that “Vice President Dick Cheney played the part of backroom power broker” during his visit to Iraq and “came away” with “pledges from Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to firm up a new blueprint for U.S.-Iraq relations that will stretch beyond the Bush presidency” and keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the U.N. mandate:
Topics ranged from security in Iraq to Iran’s rising influence in Mideast, but a key item was about crafting a long-term agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, plus a narrower deal to define the legal basis for continued U.S. troop presence.
The deal would take the place of a U.N. Security Council resolution that expires in December, the same time Bush will be packing up to leave office.
The Bush administration contends that it has “constitutional authority” to “continue combat operations” in Iraq past December without Congress’s authorization.
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