The vote to withdraw American forces from Iraq … two options presented by Abdul-Mahdi

On Sunday, resigned Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi presented two options to parliament on discussing a draft law to withdraw US forces from the country.

Abdul-Mahdi said in a speech, that the first option relates to ending the presence of American forces in Iraq and setting a timetable for this.

The second option, according to Abdul-Mahdi, is to return to a draft decision that belongs to the previous government, stipulating that the conditions for the presence of any foreign forces are related to training Iraqi forces only, and to help Iraq pursue ISIS cells under the supervision and approval of the Iraqi government. It is not permissible to have foreign forces in charge of Hostilities in Iraq.

On the other hand, jurists assert that the Iraqi parliament does not have the absolute powers to pass a law, due to the presence of a caretaker government.

A parliamentary source revealed that the text of the draft law consists of four articles. The first obliges the Iraqi government to cancel the request for assistance submitted to it by the international coalition to fight ISIS.

The second article states that the Iraqi government must announce the numbers of foreign technicians and trainers it needs, their whereabouts, tasks and the duration of their contracts.

And the third article says that the foreign minister should go to the United Nations and the International Security Council to file a complaint against the United States, because of “a violation of the sovereignty of Iraq.”

As for the fourth article, it requires the implementation of the decision from the date of voting on it.

The parliament session was postponed for one hour, because not enough representatives attended most of the blocs.

Vian Sabri, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said that “the Kurdish blocs will not participate in today’s session (Sunday) of the Iraqi parliament, and as far as we know, a portion of the Sunnis will not participate either.”

The session will take place two days after an American plane attack on a convoy near Baghdad airport, killing the Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and the leader of the Iraqi popular crowd Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.