MP criticizes Iraqi gov’t for inaccurate data about foreign troops in Iraq
FILE PHOTO: U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria April 25, 2017. REUTERS/ Rodi Said/File Photo
Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – The Iraqi parliament has no accurate data on the foreign troops deployed across Iraq, almost three months after the government declared victory over Islamic State militants, an Iraqi lawmaker was quoted as saying Sunday.
Speaking to Alsumaria News, MP Adnan al-Asadi, a member of the parliament’s security and defense committee, said that his committee has asked the Iraqi government about the number and locations of foreign troops deployed across the country, but no reply was received so far.
Asadi urged the government to provide his committee with all necessary data on the “foreign troops in Iraq, including their number and whereabouts, as well as their weapons and locations of their temporary and permanent bases.”
“The popular and official stance at the House of Representatives and the government is completely opposing any permanent presence by foreign troops in Iraq, particularly after the end of the war against the Islamic State group,” he said.
Asadi stressed that the parliament had earlier urged the government to set a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, considering the presence of foreign troops in Iraq as a “new occupation of the country.”
The U.S.-led coalition intervened in Iraq after IS militants declared in 2014 the establishment of a self-proclaimed “caliphate” rule in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
But a spokesman of the Pentagon was quoted saying after the Iraqi announcement that U.S. troops were only shifting mission from combat to training, without plans for a sharp drawdown of troops.
The Pentagon had said in December it was keeping nearly 5,000 troops in Iraq.