Alwaght- The Iraqi President Abdulatif Jamal Rashid expressed hope that the US and the Western coalition will soon leave Iraq.
He said that the American withdrawal is a decision the Iraqi government makes through coordination with the political parties and the parliament.
He added that the US forces were deployed to Iraq in opposition to ISIS, but now the terrorist group's danger has considerably subsided compared to 2014, implying that there is no excuse for the American boots on Iraqi ground.
He sounded upbeat about imminence of the US withdrawal from the country in an interview with Saudi-funded Al-Hadath news network.
Iraqi parliament passed a bill on January 5, 2020, calling for expulsion of the American forces from the country in response to the US assassination of two major anti-terror commanders, Iran's General Qassam Soleimani and Iraq's Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Baghdad and Washington have been involved in withdrawal talks over the past two months. Just last week, an Iraqi official said that they ended two rounds of talks with the Americans.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in mid-January openly said that the Americans and the Western coalition they head are no longer needed in Iraq as the country’s armed fires are strong enough to protect the country against any terrorism threats.
He repeated his comments last week. Al-Sudani made the comments during a press conference, in which he stressed that the Iraqi government began an integrated program to improve the armament of the security forces in conjunction with seeking to end the presence of the international coalition in the country.
The justifications for the coalition's existence in 2014 have ended today, and "we are in the year 2024," al-Sudani said.
The PM comments came as public and political pressures are building on al-Sudani to press the Americans for withdrawal. The anti-American sentiments have been running high in Iraq and across the region since Israeli war on Gaza began on October 8. The US is an accomplice to the American genocidal war in Gaza, Iraqis insist.
The Pentagon said on January 8 it was not currently planning to withdraw its roughly 2,500 troops from Iraq, despite Baghdad's announcement last week it would begin the process of removing the US-led military coalition from the country.
"Right now, I'm not aware of any plans (to plan for withdrawal). We continue to remain very focused on the defeat ISIS mission," Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing, using an acronym for Islamic State. He added that U.S. forces are in Iraq at the invitation of its government.
With the US refusing to pull out, attacks on its forces have been on the rise. It said its forces in Syria and Iraq came under attacks more than 160 times since October 7, most of which claimed by Islamic Resistance in Iraq— an umbrella coalition comprised of anti-American forces.
Akram al-Ka'bi, the head of Al-Nujaba Movement and a prominent anti-American militia leader said on Monday "the US only knows the language of force and that talks with it would not work. He, however, said that he does not oppose the government's negotiations with the Americans.
Since about three weeks, Iraqi groups have scaled down their attacks on the American bases in expectation of an outcome from talks with Washington. This means that they will not wait long.
