Condi Rice flies to Iraq to (re?) negotiate?

Last night, local Iraqi and US negotiators said there was a done deal on the SoFA. By this morning, Condi Rice had flown into Iraq saying, not so fast.

"The negotiators have taken this very, very far," she told reporters, "but there is no reason to believe that there is an agreement yet." .......

"There are still issues concerning exactly how our forces operate," Rice said. "The agreement rests on aspirational timelines."

Last night, the AP reporters in Iraq (Abdul-Zarwa and Robert Burns) sourced "Iraqi and US negotiators" saying the draft was done, but today's AP piece, written by Matthew Lee traveling with Condi Rice, says there is no deal yet.

So, were "Iraqi and US negotiators" overstating? Is Rice flying in to reopen talks? Or is the White House just mad that the announcement didn't come from them, taking away their ability to spin the story?

Maybe this section (from today's story) is obliquely telling us.

U.S. officials have resisted committing firmly to a specific date for a final pullout, insisting that it would be wiser to set a target linked to the attainment of certain agreed-upon goals......

Late Wednesday a second senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two sides have come up with a draft agreement that addresses the issue of the timing of future U.S. troop withdrawals, but the official would not say whether the two sides had agreed on 2011 for a final pullout. The official suggested there would be a series of timelines set, linked to conditions on the ground, and that the draft worked out by the negotiators required more talks at higher levels of the two governments.

I read that to say a hard 2011 deal was worked out in negotiations, but the White House wasn't pleased that it wasn't presented as tied to "benchmarks" and goals.

Politically, the Bush White House needs the "conditions and goals" language to salvage years of their own rhetoric as well as the positions of their party's presidential candidate.

Later: The AFP has a little more.

"We are very, very close to an agreement. But it's not done," Rice said referring to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

"Undoubtedly it's true that the negotiators have taken this very, very far towards an end-agreement but there is no reason to believe that there is an agreement," Rice told reporters travelling with her.....

"We are continuing to work to make sure that any timeline, aspirational timelines, that are in the agreement really do reflect what we believe and ... what is reasonable," she said.

Her forcing of "aspirational timelines" into her statements does sound like that timeline language is an issue.

Or, CNN. Because this seems to be written almost exclusively from the plane, I read "US official" to be Condi Rice's staff.

However, the U.S. official said there are no dates in the agreement, only general timeframes that would take into account conditions on the ground.....

The U.S. source, though, said the June 30 date is a goal, but not set in stone.

"Not a deadline, it's not a timeline," he said. "It's conditions-permitting."

(The Iraqis won't be able to pass anything that's not perceived as a deadline.)