Senior MP:

No Treaty Justifies US Military Deployment in Iraq

A senior Iraqi legislator underlined that his country has not signed any agreement with Washington which includes contents to justify the US military presence in Iraq.

News ID: 443498

Date: 14 February 2019 - 10:23

RNA - "A security agreement was inked between Baghdad and Washington in 2008 and it requires the US forces to leave Iraq and only render logistical support to the Iraqi security forces like equipping them with weapons and training them," Mozar Khaz'al, a representative of Islah coalition in the Iraqi parliament, told al-Ma'aloumeh news website on Wednesday.

He underlined that the contents of the agreement do not include the US military presence in Iraq, saying that if Iraq's security is seriously endangered, then the American forces should defend it but they showed no reaction when the ISIL terrorist group raided a number of Iraqi provinces.

Khaz'al said that the Iraqi parliament will try to approve a bill which requires evacuation of all foreign forces who are deployed in Iraq illegally.

Calls have grown in Iraq for the US exit since last December, when President Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to al-Asad Air Base in the Western Anbar Province.

Iraq’s two leading Shiite parliamentary coalitions of Sairoun (Marching towards Reform) and al-Fatah (Conquest) renewed their calls for the withdrawal of American forces from the Arab country.

A delegation from Sairoun bloc, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, held talks with members of Fatah alliance, headed by secretary general of the Badr Organization, Hadi al-Ameri, on Monday.

At a press conference following the meeting, Nasser al-Rabie, the head of the Sairoun delegation, stressed that the two political parties shared a common stance on the pullout of foreign troops from Iraqi territory.

Ameri, for his part, said that continued presence of American forces in Iraq was not possible in the current form and had to be reorganized under a new agreement.

The Americans, he added, were driven out of Iraq in 2011, but they once again entered the country in 2014 under the pretext of fighting the ISIL terrorist group.

The two political alliances had a few days ago expressed their objection to the US military presence in Iraq.

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