As the NY Times reported yesterday, time is running out for a U.S.-Iraq agreement. There are less than 10 weeks left until the U.N. mandate expires, and the Iraqi parliament is in no hurry to approve the lousy deal that Bush offered them. Moreover, Muqtada al-Sadr is adamantly opposed to any deal.

The key stumbling block is immunity. Iraqis want as much jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. troops as they can get. And the Pentagon (and Congress) want to give them as little jurisdiction as he possibly can.

So how is Bush squaring the circle? By lying to both sides.

Here's what Bush is telling Iraqis:

Under the compromise, the U.S. would have the primary right to try troops and Pentagon contractors for alleged offenses committed on American bases or during military operations, the officials said.

Such language would presumably shield troops from prosecution for accidentally killing civilians caught in the crossfire during authorized combat operations.

But Iraq would have first crack at trying U.S. military personnel and contractors for major, premeditated crimes allegedly committed outside American bases and when they are not on an authorized mission, the officials said.

Most of the estimated 147,000 U.S. troops rarely leave their bases except on authorized missions, so it is unclear whether the change would send a significant number of Americans before Iraqi judges.

However, examples of cases that could fall under Iraqi jurisdiction might include the 2006 rape-slaying of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her family by American soldiers in Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad.

In that famous case, the soldiers were on duty but then took off their uniforms to commit an allegedly pre-meditated crime.

Green and three other soldiers from the 101st's 502nd Infantry Regiment were on duty at a traffic checkpoint when they conspired to rape the female who lived nearby.

According to witness testimony in the affidavit, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the victims' home to avoid detection.

But he's singing a different song to Congress:

According to several officials with indirect knowledge of the draft, U.S. jurisdiction will prevail except in the most serious cases involving acts committed off-duty and outside the confines of U.S. bases.

One source said that in the case of an allegedly premeditated crime, Iraqi jurisdiction would be considered, although the United States would have the final decision in all circumstances.

So Bush is telling Iraqis they would have "first crack" at prosecution, but he's telling Congress "the United States would have the final decision." Those concepts are mutually exclusive. So which is it?

Obviously legislators in Iraq and the U.S. will want to examine the actual text in precise detail. But will the rules be explicit? For the past 8 years, Cheney's lawyer David Addington has made sure such authorizations were as vague as possible.

And there's one other area for doubt: will the words be the same in English and in Arabic? At the outset of the SOFA negotiations, the White House pretended there was a "mistranslation" of a controversial document from Arabic to English, when the document was originally written in ... English.