Page 12 - DMEA Week 07 2020

DMEA POLICY DMEA
US military offers Iraq a partial withdrawal
IRAQ
Iran’s parliament in January voted for foreign forces to leave the country.
THE repercussions of the US air strike that killed Iranian General Soleimani and the others identi- ed by the Americans as behind the many terror- ist incidents in the Middle East and the backlash from Iraq’s parliament are still playing out.
e US military has o ered senior Iraqi secu- rity o cials plans for a partial pullback of troops from Iraq in response to January’s parliamen- tary vote calling for foreign forces to leave the country.
A meeting between the two sides, held in great secrecy last week, heard that Washington was prepared “in principle” to discuss withdrawal.
A representative of the US military told the Iraqis present that the US was prepared to leave positions in or near Shia-majority areas, such as Balad Airbase, which is located 80km north of Baghdad and houses US trainers and contractors.
“We are prepared to leave some of the Shia-majority areas, like the base in Balad. Maybe we could reduce our presence in Bagh- dad,” the military representative told his Iraqi counterparts, who understood from this that the US presence in the Iraqi capital would be reduced to guarding its embassy and the airport.
However, the US side categorically ruled out withdrawing from Ain al-Assad, their biggest airbase in Iraq, and indeed the whole Middle East.
e Anbar province base came under ballis- tic missile re from Iran last month, in response to the US killing of the top Iranian commander, Major-General Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces, at Baghdad Airport.
For the US side, Ain al-Assad was its “red line”. e representative said: “We cannot even start talking about withdrawing [from that base]. Withdrawal is out of the question.”
Such was the sensitivity of these discussions that they were held well away from Iraq. e meeting took place in the private residence of the Canadian ambassador to Jordan in Amman.
The private offer made to the Iraqis in Amman goes well beyond US Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo’s last stated position a month ago. Reacting to the are-up between Washington and Tehran in Iraq, then-acting Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said both the US drone strike and retaliation by Iran had violated Iraq’s sov- ereignty. He demanded that Washington send a delegation to discuss the withdrawal of some
5,200 troops stationed in the country. Following the formal US handover to Iraqi forces in November 2011, ending the eight-year occupation, the US military has relied on diplo- matic notes inviting soldiers into the country and o ering them immunity from prosecution. e notes themselves, which were sent in 2014, have
never been published.
January’s Iraqi parliamentary vote was advi-
sory and non-binding, and the incoming prime minister, Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi, has yet to navigate his way around the issue. Allawi is supported by Tehran and influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. e premier is work- ing towards US withdrawal from Iraq, which would likely lead to stronger ties with Tehran and Damascus at the expense of Washington and its regional allies. Although not popular with anti-government protestors, Allawi has pledged to work with the UN to implement their demands.
James Je rey, US special envoy to the coali- tion ghting IS, has insisted that the agreement to station US forces in Iraq was between Wash- ington and the Baghdad government, not the parliament.
However, in frequent meetings between Jef- frey and his Iraqi counterparts, the now departed Abdul Mahdi made clear to the US how vulnera- ble their forces were to the powerful Shia militia in the country.
The pressure on US forces to pull back remains intense.
The US State Department has refused to comment on the Amman meeting. Sources said they would not comment on private diplomatic discussions.
France, Germany and Australia are also reported to have submitted requests to the joint special operations command to set up the
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