The parliamentarian vote was delayed by a day
The agreement to withdraw US troops from Iraq by 2011, and severely curtail their powers from the beginning of next year, is hugely symbolic for the Iraqi government.
Instead of the US forces being here under a United Nations mandate, they are deployed under a bilateral agreement between two sovereign powers.
The government was keen to win the support of MPs from the Sunni minority, so that the plan could be seen to have a national consensus rather than to have been steamrolled through by the mainstream Shia parties.
Under the deal US troops will withdraw by 2011
It it fails, Iraq may well ask the Americans to pull out their troops earlier.
