The pact

Less than half an hour ago, AP reported that the Iraqi cabinet has agreed to the US-Iraq security pact.

Iraq's Cabinet on Sunday approved a security pact with the United States that will allow American forces to stay in Iraq for three years after their U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year, the government said.

The decision followed months of difficult negotiations and, pending parliamentary approval, will remove a major point of contention between the two allies.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all but one of the 28 Cabinet ministers present in Sunday's meeting, in addition to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, voted in favor of the pact by a show of hands.

Iraq's Council of Representatives still has to give final approval.  Recent violence makes that more likely, as do the modifications to the pact which the US finally agreed to.

"[The pact] provides for the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 and gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers and defense contractors in the case of serious crimes committed off-duty and off-base. It also prohibits the U.S. from using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq's neighbors, like Syria and Iran."

As if.  We've seeing an awful lot of the US doing the dirty deed, denying it hotly, and then owning up to it on page A-16 months later.