The US has no alternative and must pull its troops out of Iraq, or else face an impending crisis, the country’s outgoing prime minister says.
But President Donald Trump said that it is not the right time for a pullout and that it would be the worst thing that could happen to Iraq.
Mr Trump said a US pullout would allow Iran to gain a stronger foothold in Iraq.
“The people of Iraq do not want to see Iran running the country, that I can tell you,” Mr Trump said from the White House.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who resigned in November amid mass anti-government protests, said Iraq wants a US troop withdrawal to avoid further escalation as tensions soar between American and Iran.
His comments came just days after a US air strike killed Iran’s top general, shortly after he arrived at Baghdad’s international airport.
A senior Iraqi commander of an Iran-backed militia was also killed in Friday’s drone strike.
“We have no exit but this, otherwise we are speeding toward confrontation,” Mr Abdul-Mahdi said in a pre-recorded televised speech following a weekly cabinet meeting.
He said the “historic decision” was necessary, “otherwise we will not be taken seriously”.
US troops are present in Iraq based on a request by the government in 2014, when vast swathes of the country were being overrun by the so-called Islamic State group.
But now that IS has been largely defeated, Mr Abdul-Mahdi said, the mission has devolved into a US-Iran proxy war.
Iraq was barely starting to recover from the devastating four-year war against IS when mass protests erupted in October against the country’s ruling elite, forcing Mr Abdul-Mahdi to resign two months later. He has not been replaced.
A letter from Brigadier General William H. Seely, the commander of the US taskforce in Iraq, to his Iraqi counterpart, dated Monday, had said the US-led coalition would be “repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement”.
Many media outlets initially reported that was formal notice that the US was withdrawing forces on Iraqi soil.
US defence secretary Mark Esper later clarified to reporters that there were no plans for American troops to leave Iraq.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the letter had been “an honest mistake”.
Mr Abdul-Mahdi responded that Iraqi authorities had thought the letter was legitimate when it was received, and were blindsided when US officials said it was sent in error.
“So in the future, what should we do if we get such a request? We should check if it is authentic or not? If we are late, then they will tell us that we are late,” he said.
The prime minister’s office had immediately sent the letter to the Iraq foreign minister and Iraq’s ambassador in Washington and other parties, Mr Abdul-Mahdi said.
An initial Arabic translation of the letter had contradicted the English version, he added, and another copy was then resent.
“We have to hold discussions in order to reach the best ways for a withdrawal,” he said.
