Related articles:

US: Security pact now final, up to Iraq to pass Bush confident Iraq will OK pact Iraq spokesman say US fixes in security pact 'not enough' Barack Obama for president

Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government is coming around to the view that it would be better to sign a security deal with the Bush administration than to wait to strike a deal with President-elect Barack Obama, according to Iraqi officials.

The new view is spurred in part by some fresh concessions from the U.S. as well as by threats from the U.S. to suspend all operations in Iraq if there is no deal by the end of the year, according to Iraqi officials.

The political mood began to shift more than a week ago, before Obama's election victory, after the U.S. delivered a stiff warning that if there is no deal by the end of the year, the U.S. military will be forced to suspend all its operations in Iraq, including the provision of many services such as air-traffic control, as well as ongoing campaigns against the remnants of the insurgency.

That appears to have given government officials pause, said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish legislator. "The Iraqi government realizes they still need the Americans," he said. "They still cannot survive on their own."

However, Shiite clerics warned the government Friday not to sign a pact.

Several influential Shiite clerics criticized the agreement during sermons Friday, the main Muslim day of worship, arguing that the deal serves U.S. interests more than those of Iraq.

"We renew our total refusal of the security agreement and again we demand parliament and government not to sign it," Sheik Assad al-Nasiri told worshippers in Kufa, 100 miles south of the capital.

The Iraqis are still studying the American response to a proposed list of Iraqi amendments to the final draft of the deal and have not decided whether to push to reopen the negotiations on a draft pact that has been in circulation for the past three weeks, Iraqi officials say.

The final draft ran into a wall of Iraqi opposition amid intense Iranian pressure not to sign, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proposed amendments in an effort to make the deal more palatable.

The fact that the U.S. appears to have given a "positive" response to some of the demands "will give Maliki a better chance to answer his opponents," said Shiite lawmaker Jalaluddin Sagheer, a prominent member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, one of the most powerful blocs in Iraq's legislature.

Doubts remain whether there is enough time to win enough support to push the deal through parliament before the Dec. 31 expiration of the U.N. mandate currently governing the presence of U.S. forces, he said.

But in the most positive indication in weeks that the government is leaning toward the deal, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Iraq's al-Hurra TV station that "the chances of signing an agreement are higher than before."

The crucial security pact, known as a Status of Forces Agreement, has been under negotiation since March and was originally aimed at defining the long-term status of U.S. forces in Iraq.

A newly confident Iraqi has made it clear, however, that it now regards the deal as a treaty defining the terms of an American withdrawal.