Muhammad Saadoun Sayhod said, there is of no use of American combat forces in Iraq and all justifications for their continued presence have already ended.
“The decision to expel American troops is backed by the government, parliament and most political factions”, Saadoun was quoted by Iraq’s Al-Maloumah news website.
The lawmaker underlined that the withdrawal of the American forces will help return the military bases to Iraqi forces, adding that the US presence will keep creating obstacles for the Iraqi armed forces to enter these bases.
He also highlighted the growing anti-American sentiment in the country, saying US forces have brought problems that have been exposed by Iraq’s Islamic Resistance. “All data and statistics about the number of US combat forces and military equipment in Iraq are inaccurate”.
The Iraqi legislator also took a jab at the US diplomatic mission located in Iraq’s Green Zone. “The number of American embassy staffers is too large and their size is different from the embassies of other countries in this country”, he noted.
The US, along with other western allies, first stationed its forces in Iraq in 2003 in the form of the so-called international coalition.
The US-led invasion of Iraq was followed by rampant violence and chaos, which set the stage for the emergence of Daesh terror group in 2014. That gave a pretext to Washington to mobilize its allies again to allegedly root out terrorists. But they failed to eliminate Daesh, while their airstrikes against purported terrorist positions led to heavy civilian casualties and damage to Iraqi infrastructure.
The Iraqi volunteer forces helping the country’s army against terrorists have on numerous occasions urged US forces to withdraw, documenting evidence that Washington has provided terrorists with weapons and military support.
The Iraqi parliament in 2020, following the assassination of Iranian anti-terror icon, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, an Iraqi deputy commander on the direct order of then US President Donald Trump, overwhelmingly voted for the withdrawal of all foreign military forces from the country.
Recently, Prime Minister Mohammad Shia Al-Sudani, in an interview with an Iraqi newspaper, also emphasized that the Daesh terrorist group is no longer a threat to this country and that the US-led forces are not required to deal with it.
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