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January 1, 2009

US Hands Over Green Zone Authority to Iraq
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=21437D8:A6F02AD83191E160CB0D58ED19BD30E02E7CA1C1B166B639&
 
Handover mandated in security deal Washington and Baghdad signed last
month, allowing US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011 
The Guards of Honour of the Iraqi National Forces parade as they fly the
Iraqi flag outside the former palace of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein
inside the Green Zone in Baghdad, 01 Jan 2009The United States has
handed Iraq control of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone in the
first step of a new security agreement that will see U.S. forces
withdraw from the country by 2011.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
called the handover a sign that Iraq is regaining its sovereignty more
than five years after the U.S. invaded the country. U.S. officials had
governed Iraq from the Green Zone, and for many Iraqis, it was a symbol
of American occupation. Speaking at a ceremony marking the transfer of
control Thursday, Mr. Maliki proposed that January 1 be a national
holiday. Earlier, as the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve, the
U.S. also returned control of the Republican Palace in Baghdad to the
Iraqi government. U.S. authorities had used the palace as their
diplomatic center since the fall of the late Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein. They will now work from a newly-built embassy compound. The
handover is mandated in a security deal Washington and Baghdad signed in
November, allowing U.S. troops to remain in Iraq until 2011. The deal
replaces a United Nations resolution allowing foreign troops in Iraq.
The security pact calls for U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi
cities and towns by June 30 of this year, and to completely withdraw
from the country by the end of 2011.The withdrawal is conditional on
whether Iraqi forces have assumed full security responsibilities.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.


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