Iraqi CP: US forces alone are held responsible for cross-border raid into Syria

Iraqi CP: US forces alone are held responsible for cross-border raid into Syria

The Iraqi parliament, in its session held on Tuesday 28 September 2008, discussed the cross-border military operation into Syria carried out by US forces last Sunday.]
Earlier in the session, a member of parliament Abdul Karim al-Enzi pointed out that the raid caused a political crisis between Iraq and Syria, and that it was in contravention of Iraqi constitution. He called on the Iraqi government to provide an explanation for what happened during the operation.
Hamid Majeed Mousa, Iraqi Communist leader and member of parliament, stressed that the American forces alone are held responsible for the raid, because it did not respect the Iraqi constitution. He called on the parliament to shoulder its responsibility when it debates the security agreement to be signed with the American side.
Other members of parliament considered the US raid to be extremely sensitive and dangerous, and called for resolving the issue through diplomatic dialogue with Syria. Reference was made to the fact that UN Security Council resolution 1546 had given Multi-national Forces the authority to provide security for Iraq, and thus called for revising these resolutions to ensure a bigger role for the Iraqi government. Mahmoud Othman, Member of Parliament from the Kurdistan Alliance, suggested that the parliament should ask the government to conduct an investigation, supervised by the Arab League, into the raid.
Another MP, Shatha al-Mousawi, called on the parliament to endorse the security agreement with the US because it contains articles that prohibit the use of Iraqi territories to carry out aggression on neighbouring countries. Wa'il Abdul Latif said that no information was available about the US raid, and called for seeking an explanation from the Iraqi ministry of defence.

Source: news report in "Tareeq Al-Shaab" (People's Path), the central organ of the Iraqi Communist Party, 29-10-2008.