Clues are emerging about what might the Bush administration be doing to extend its influence in Iraq beyond this year, but barring a real transformation by the so-called liberal media, it will be up to us to piece it all together for a clearer picture.

This morning, Walter Pincus has an interesting piece in the Washington Post about new contracts that would place Americans in security and other “mentoring” roles in Iraq through the next year, with options to renew after that:

The contracts call for new spending, from supplying mentors to officials with Iraq’s Defense and Interior ministries to establishing a U.S.-marshal-type system to protect Iraqi courts. Contractors would provide more than 100 linguists with secret clearances and deliver food to Iraqi detainees at a new, U.S.-run prison.

The proposals reflect multiyear commitments. The mentor contract notes that the U.S. military “desires for both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense to become mostly self-sufficient within two years,” a time outside some proposals for U.S. combat troop withdrawal. The mentors sought would “advise, train [and] assist . . . particular Iraqi officials” who work in the Ministry of Defense, which runs the Iraqi army, or the Ministry of Interior, which runs the police and other security units.

The mentors will assist an U.S. military group that previously began to implement what are described as “core processes and systems,” such as procurement, contracting, force development, management and budgeting, and public affairs.

Mentors would have to make a one-year commitment, with options for two one-year contracts after that. As a reminder of what they are getting into, the mentors must supply their helmets, protective body armor and gas masks, according to the announcement.

The US still holds 20,000 Iraqis prisoners in that country, and there has been no (public) discourse about what may happen to them once the the UN mandate authorizing the foreign occupation expires at the end of the year. That is another story. The Bush team will be on its way out, but it is currently, secretly, in negotiations with the Maliki government on at least two deals that will allow American troops and all US personnel to stay. Protests have been fanning all over the country, among Sunni and Shia alike, according to a good wrap-up from Juan Cole, with rumors about permanent US bases rampant, but details are scarce. The confusion is over the reported Status of Forces Agreement, which would keep troops in Iraq after the UN deal is expired, and a supposedly broader Strategic Framework Agreement, which would define the US relationship there moving forward.

Senators like Jim Webb have been adamant that such agreements must come through congress first — especially any “strategic framework,” since it is not clear at this point what the heck is even in it — but the administration might bypass the American people altogether on a technicality: it’s an agreement not a treaty.

Since some members of the mainstream media hive have declared their critics “left wing haters” for even suggesting they weren’t doing their job in the run-up to the Iraq war, depending on them for clarity on this issue would be too much to ask. The question is, how much does John McCain know about future US-Iraqi security agreements? How powerless are Democrats and other war policy critics now to do anything to stop the administration from putting its greasy footprint on the next president’s first year(s) in office? Putting this stuff on page A-11 and completely removed from television news reports practically ensures that Iraq will continue to be on the back-burner for the election, and then re-emerge for most Americans like a bad dream after January 2009.