Via WaPo:
Two debates in a row, participants have argued over an obscure document known as the status of forces agreement (SOFA), which addresses whether a country has criminal jurisdiction over U.S. personnel. The United States has signed more than 100 such agreements, but a lapsed one in Iraq has loomed in importance.
Republicans charge that the Obama administration’s failure to obtain one after 2011 led to the departure of U.S. troops. Democrats assert the timetable was set by George W. Bush, and so, in effect, the administration’s hands were tied.
Let’s sort out what really happened.
The Facts
In 2008, Bush did sign an agreement with Iraq that called for the departure of U.S. troops at the end of 2011. But this is one of those technically true facts that obscures more than it illuminates.
First of all, Bush wasn’t very happy with setting a fixed date. As former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote in her 2011 memoir, “No Higher Honor,” the administration “hoped to avoid setting a firm date for departure in order to allow the conditions on the ground dictate our decisions.” The plan was to remove combat troops by 2011 but leave in place 40,000 soldiers for training and logistics. But then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reneged on the deal and asked for language that said all forces would leave by then. Bush “swallowed hard” but accepted the arrangement on the assumption it would leave a “firm foundation” for the next president, Rice wrote.
In fact, both sides assumed that before the SOFA expired, the two countries would negotiate an extension. “There was an expectation that we would negotiate something that looked like a residual force for our training with the Iraqis,” Rice told a reporter in 2011. “Everybody believed it would be better if there was some kind of residual force.”