BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government voted on Sunday, November 16, to approve a wide-ranging military agreement that governs the presence of US troops in the country until 2011, despite fierce opposition from some Shiite and Sunni forces.

"The cabinet has just unanimously approved a deal between Iraq and the US for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told a press conference in Baghdad.

The cabinet approved the agreement after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting, with 27 ministers voting for it, one abstaining and 10 skipping the meeting.

Dabbagh said US forces would hand over their bases to Iraq in 2009 and would lose the authority to raid homes without an order from an Iraqi judge and permission from the government.

The US and Iraq have been scrambling for months to reach an agreement that will govern the status of more than 150,000 US soldiers stationed in some 400 bases across the country after their UN mandate expires on December 31.

It took nearly 11 months of tense and detailed negotiations before both were comfortable with the final draft.

The draft agreement includes 31 articles and calls for US troops to withdraw from the entire country by the end of 2011.

Dabbagh said a joint executive and a technical committee will be established to investigate violations committed by US forces.

Iraq had demanded the right to prosecute crimes committed by US troops and foreign contractors, while the US agreed to lift their immunity only for those who committed crimes off-duty and off their bases.

Dabbagh said Iraq had succeeded in securing the right to investigate all cargo being brought into and out of the country, another key demand it had made in the negotiations.

And the agreement will transfer the files of an estimated 16,400 detainees currently being held by US forces to Iraqi judges, who will decide their fate.

The parliament will vote on the pact on November 24 and if approved it would be ratified by the three-member presidential council.

The government's approval of the controversial agreement drew immediate rebuke from Sunni and Shiite powers.

"Today the cabinet has agreed to put Iraq under the mandate of the American occupation forces," Ahmed al-Masoudy, spokesman for Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, told Reuters.

"It is a deeply regrettable and sorrowful thing."

Masoudy urged the Iraqi people to take to the streets to show their opposition to the security pact.

"We are calling upon the Iraqi people to stage demonstrations and sit-ins to stop this farce."

Sadr's followers are planning a massive demonstration in the capital Baghdad on Friday, November 17.

The young Shiite scholar has already announced the creation of a new militia, the Brigades of the Promised Day, to fight US forces staying in the country.

Sadr's Mahdi Army militia had engaged in two bloody battles against US forces before declaring a ceasefire in August 2007.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's highest Sunni authority, also renewed its fierce opposition to the security pact.

"We have stated our opposition to this pact a year ago and our stance has not changed," spokesman Muthanna Harith Al-Dari told the Doha-based Al-Jazeera television.

The association issued a fatwa last month against the security agreement.

Dari said the pact gives no guarantee that the US would not use Iraqi territories to attack neighboring countries or that US soldiers who commit violations against Iraqis would be tried under the law of the land.