To put this in perspective, it took over 12 months for the US to remove the last 5,500 troops they took out of Iraq, bringing the total to 44,500 left. The promised move would be significant.

If the US actually follows through, this would leave 30,000 troops left with the current Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) requiring them all to leave by the end of December. The US is not expected to meet the December deadline, however, and is expected to leave significant troops in Iraq as well as the potential for a major attack force in neighboring Kuwait.

The Iraqi government has not approved the repeated US demands to formally “request” their continued presence. The Maliki government has left open the possibility of military “trainers,” which it claims would not require parliamentary approval.

The statement has Hashimi declaring that the “interests of both countries are not to extend or renew the security agreement,” though Ambassador Jeffrey was said to have confirmed the US willingness to keep troops in the nation, or simply training units, or withdraw entirely.

The Bush Administration and the Maliki government agreed to the SOFA in late 2008, though Iraq’s parliament only approved it with the promise of a referendum on the pact (which never came). This codified the continued US occupation through the end of 2011, though by 2009 officials were already openly talking about extending the presence.

The US calls to extend their presence picked up heavily early this year, and officials have repeatedly demanded that Maliki “request” the continued US occupation through 2012 and beyond. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested that the US could remain for “years” to come, despite massive opposition among a number of Iraqi political factions.

At least, the date was firm until it started creeping up on everyone. Now, with just 18 months left to withdraw some 90,000 troops from the still war-torn nation, the US commander for the nation, Gen. Ray Odierno, is floating the idea of bringing the UN back for the post-2011 occupation.

Odierno was vague on the proposal, saying it was only “one option” and that the troops would likely be deployed primarily along the border between Iraq proper and its semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, in an effort to keep the two sides from clashing openly. US troops are deployed in the area currently.

But even with the US troops in the region, attacks still happen. Only yesterday four soldiers were wounded when a “traffic accident” led to fistfights between Iraqi soldiers and the Peshmerga, the paramilitary group loyal to the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Despite President Obama’s claims to the contrary, such a delay would almost certainly have a disastrous affect on the already nebulous timetable for America’s pullout from Iraq.

President Obama has removed very few troops from Iraq since taking office and military officials have repeatedly suggested that the working plan was to conduct a new assessment a few months after the election and decide on a strategy to start reducing troops at a faster rate after that.

It is a fair question in the first place to wonder if the elections will really be a stabilizing event in Iraq, particularly after crooked elections in Afghanistan and neighboring Iran over the last several months have had the opposite effect. But if the elections are delayed over the question of allowing the public to vote on actual candidates instead of vague “lists,” the problem is compounded.

Perhaps lost in all of this is the referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which was required by law to be held in July of 2009 but somehow never materialized. It was suggested it might be held as part of the January vote but doesn’t seem to be getting serious discussion. The referendum would allow the Iraqi public to order the SOFA cancelled 12 months after the vote is certified, but a delay in the election would likely push the cancellation date past the December 2011 end of the pact, effectively making the vote meaningless.

The Iraqi government only managed to get the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) through parliament with a promise of a referendum in July 2009 to allow Iraqi voters to decide on it. Though the parliament rejected delays, the July vote never happened, and officials now say it won’t be held until January 2010, if at all.

Even if the referendum rejects the SOFA, the US would have 12 months after the release of the results to actually remove the 131,000 troops it has in the nation. Though the US has promised a withdrawal several times, it has not removed significant numbers of troops and has even added some in recent weeks.

Several Iraqi MPs have complained about the delay to the referendum, expressing concerns about oversight of the cabinet. It should be noted, however, that the Bush Administration refused to even let the US Congress see the SOFA text until after its ratification, and neither Congress nor the American people had any opportunity to vote on the pact.

The vote was scheduled to be held in late July 2009, and the efforts to delay the vote were fought tooth and nail by parliament. Ultimately parliament never signed off on the delay, but weeks after the deadline the vote somehow managed to never happen.

So now Maliki’s proposed idea of holding the vote in January, alongside the also-delayed parliamentary vote, is no longer the worst case scenario for Iraqis waiting for a chance to vote on a pact that enormous numbers of them have publicly protested again. Rather, it’s being presented as a possibility, but one that might not happen either.

US officials are reportedly upset by the possibility of the SOFA being rescinded early, even though the pact makes specific provisions for doing just that and a January vote would only take effect in 2011, months after the Obama “end of combat” deadline and just months before the pact is supposed to expire anyhow. Now, they are lobbying to not hold the vote at all. With Iraq’s parliament in recess it seems even the January vote is looking less and less likely.

The Bush Administration, by contrast, claimed the 2011 pullout was merely an “aspirational date.” Though the Maliki government denied this at the time, it seems they are finally owning up to the reality with Prime Minister Maliki today declaring that the pact could be “reconsidered” in 2011.

“If the Iraqi forces require further training and further support, we shall examine this then at that time, based on the needs of Iraq,” Maliki insists. Iraqi officials and the Obama government have both insisted that the pullout is actually on schedule at the moment.

Yet only a few thousand US troops have left Iraq since President Obama took office, and few if any are expected to go through the beginning of next year. This certainly leaves doubts as to the president’s willingness to actually withdraw troops from the nation in a timely fashion, and Maliki seems like he may be willing to oblige a long-term stay.

The police did not elaborate on the nature of the US visits to the stations or what exactly occurred. US troops were withdrawn from Mosul at the end of June, but have remained along the outskirts of the city limits and still patrol inside the city.

US troops have had a tense relationship with Mosul’s police since a February incident in which a US patrol was attacked by Mosul police inside a station. A US soldier was killed and four others wounded. Their Iraqi interpreter was also killed.

Though the US eventually captured suspects they seemed fairly certain were behind the incident in early June and turned them over to the Mosul police, they have complained that the police are dragging their feet on the incident. The Mosul police department claimed they couldn’t even confirm that the two captives were even police, let alone the police involved in the shooting.

That date is rapidly approaching and parliament has set aside the money to fund the vote. Maliki’s cabinet has sought to delay the pact, but has been rebuffed by parliament. It seems then that by the end of the month, a vote could be held which would hand the legality of the continued US military presence over to the Iraqi voting public.

The SOFA requires a year of advanced notice to cancel, so even if the vote fails the US would have until 2010 to complete its withdrawal of 131,000 troops from the nation. There has been no publicly released polling data on the likelihood of the referendum to pass, but a failure would at the very least seriously inconvenience President Obama’s desire to keep 50,000 troops in the nation “indefinitely.”

The Iraqis are fresh off of a national holiday celebrating US withdrawal from their cities, but June was also an exceedingly violent month, and US officials have been extremely dismissive of concerns about the massive death toll. While US troops having shifted to the outskirts of cities may somewhat relieve opposition to their presence, the prospect of well over 100,000 foreign troops remaining well into 2010 might not sit well with some.

In fact, the Obama Administration’s controversial decision to block the release of detainee abuse photos was at least in part influenced by the prospect of anti-US sentiment affecting the referendum. The US seems to be going out of its way not to make public contingency plans for a faster pullout, but very soon they could be left with a stark choice between leaving and admitting once and for all that the Iraqi people never had any real control over the presence of the occupation force.

But according to US army commanders in the Mosul area, there is enormous confusion about exactly what this requirement actually means, and have cautioned that the Iraqi government has ‘created a false impression among Iraqi citizens that American troops will no longer be seen on Mosul’s streets when, in fact, they will.’

In reality the troops will be in bases along the outskirts of the city, and they are urging Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to give them exact guidelines regarding what they can and cannot do. “All of the battalion guys have concerns,” one commander noted, “all we have at the moment is the security agreement, and all that says is ‘no unilateral patrols’.”

There has been considerable concern about the trustworthiness of the Mosul police, and likewise serious doubts about the political appointees in the Iraqi military positions around the city. For Nineveh provincial governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, the pullout can’t come soon enough however. “A US withdrawal will reduce the number of targets,” the governor insisted, noting that a number of the attacks have been targeted at the troops.