[5] The Iraqi government also approved a Strategic Framework Agreement with the United States,[6] aimed at ensuring international cooperation including minority ethnicity, gender, and belief interests and other constitutional rights; threat deterrence; exchange students; education;[7] and cooperation in the areas of energy development, environmental hygiene, health care, information technology, communications, and law enforcement.
[8] Several groups of Iraqis protested the passing of the SOFA accord[9][10][11] as prolonging and legitimizing the occupation, and Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani expressed concerns with the ratified version.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had predicted that after 2011 he would have expected to see "perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops" as part of a residual force in Iraq.
"We have reached an impasse because when we opened these negotiations we did not realize that the U.S. demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty and this is something we can never accept", he said in Amman, Jordan.
"We cannot allow U.S. forces to have the right to jail Iraqis or assume, alone, the responsibility of fighting against terrorism", Maliki told Jordanian newspaper editors, according to a journalist present at the meeting.
[18] On July 8, 2008, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani rejected the proposed agreement on the basis that it violates Iraqi sovereignty, following a meeting with Iraq National Security Advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie.
[21] On October 16, 2008, after several more months of negotiations, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed senior U.S. lawmakers on the draft SOFA, and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki prepared to circulate it with Iraq's Political National Security Council before going on to the Council of Ministers and the Iraqi parliament.
[23] On November 16, 2008, Iraq's Cabinet approved the agreement, which cited the end of 2009 for the pull out of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities, and 2011 as the fixed deadline for removal of U.S. military presence in country.
[24] However, on November 19 the Iraqi Parliament was adjourned for a day after lawmakers loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shouted down the second reading of the agreement's text.
Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani adjourned the session after Sadrist MP Ahmed al-Massoudi aggressively approached a lawmaker from the ruling coalition, who was reading aloud the text of the agreement.
[27] The same day, Secretaries Gates and Rice held classified briefings for U.S. lawmakers behind closed doors, and neither official commented to reporters.
Democratic Representative William Delahunt said: "There has been no meaningful consultation with Congress during the negotiations of this agreement and the American people for all intents and purposes have been completely left out".
[29] Tariq al Hashimi, the country's Sunni Muslim vice president, complained the U.S. would cease providing many "wide-scale services" if Iraq did not approve the pact.
[30] On November 17, 2008, the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker signed the agreement in an official ceremony.
[32] Parliament also passed another U.S.-Iraqi bilateral pact called the Strategic Framework Agreement, aimed at ensuring minority Sunni interests and constitutional rights.
[36] For example, administration officials have argued that Iraqi prosecution of U.S. soldiers could take three years, by which time the U.S. will have withdrawn from Iraq under the terms of the agreement.
Army planners have privately acknowledged they are examining projections that could see the number of Americans hovering between 30,000 and 50,000, but may be as high as 70,000, for a substantial time beyond 2011.
[39] In a letter to U.S. military personnel about new rules of engagement, Gen. Ray Odierno said that U.S. forces would reduce their visibility but that this does not mean "any reduction in our fundamental ability to protect ourselves".
Despite some adjustments to the way we conduct operations, the agreement simply reinforces transitions that are already underway, and I want to emphasize that our overarching principles remain the same", he further wrote.
[41] A spokesman for Odierno, Lt. Col. James Hutton, reiterated that the soldiers staying in cities would not be combat forces but rather "enablers," who would provide services such as medical care, air-traffic control and helicopter support that the Iraqis cannot perform themselves.
[42] Odierno's comments sparked outrage among some Iraqi lawmakers who say the United States is paving the way for breaching the interim agreement.
[citation needed] Iraqi theologian, political, and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr called for three days of peaceful protests and mourning after the passing of the agreement.
[54] During the press conference discussing the signing of the pact[55] with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in his palace in the heavily fortified Green Zone, President Bush dodged two shoes thrown at him from the audience.
The man who threw his shoes, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist with Egypt-based al-Baghdadia television network, could be heard yelling in Arabic: "This is a farewell ... you dog!"
[citation needed] The "vast majority" of viewers of al-Baghdadia TV who telephoned to the station in order to express their opinions said that they approved al-Zaidi's actions.
[48] The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki called the shoe throwing "a shameful savage act" and demanded a public apology from Al Baghdadia.
This time the U.S. asked Iraq to take a stand on the question of immunity for troops, hoping to remove what had always been the biggest challenge.
[63] In December 2019, in an official statement about a call with United States Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, caretaker Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi referred to "supporting Companied Collation Forces" in the context of a continuation of collaboration against Daesh, to "persuade Daesh's remnant and Iraq stability.