Iraq demands date for US withdrawal  

With the end of the UN mandate for US forces in Iraq approaching, the Iraqis appear unwilling to let them stay beyond 2011. If they were really committed to independence Obama wouldn't get to withdraw troops at all - they'd all be gone by the end of the year, before he is inaugurated - Iraq demands date for US withdrawal.

Two days after Barack Obama's election as president, Iraqi officials are insisting on a withdrawal date for American troops regardless of conditions on the ground.

An effort to reach an agreement sanctioning the US military presence in Iraq beyond this year would collapse if no deal was reached by the end of this month, an Iraqi spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said on Thursday. But a US embassy spokeswoman said the same day that US officials had already presented Iraq's Government with a "final text".

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said the United States had agreed to several changes proposed by Baghdad to the security deal. "We have responded very positively to many of their concerns," Mr Whitman said, and that "there have been some changes that have been made. That was the end of negotiations "on our side", he said.