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Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal <a class="user" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051000387.html&quot;&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...</a>A resolution requiring the government to seek permission of the parliament before asking the U.N. to reauthorize the presence of foreign forces in Iraq. The resolution passed, gathering support even from Sunni lawmakers, including Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, then speaker of the parliament, who had previously called for the Americans to stay until ?they have corrected what they have done.?Iraq intends to toss the U.S. by 2008: "Iraq formally asked the United Nations on Monday to renew that mandate for a year until the end of 2008. It made clear it would not extend the mandate beyond next year and the mandate could be revoked sooner at Iraq?s request."Bush (and McCain) thinks withdrawal means the US is no longer engaged in combat but will remain in the 14 permanent US military bases. But the Iraqi National Security Adviser said: "I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi,? he told Dubai-based al Arabiya television in an interview broadcast late on Monday.<a class="user" href="http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/24984&quot;&gt;http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/ ...</a>"The President has indicated, if a democratically elected government or the Iraqi people were to ask us to leave, we would do so."<a class="user" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20060313.html&quot;&gt;http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20060313.html&lt;/a&gt;And that was proven to be a "lie" from the day it was said.As early as August of 2003, five months after the invasion, a Zogby poll found that two-thirds of Iraqis wanted the U.S. and British forces to leave the country within a year, and more than half said that the Iraqis should be left alone to set up their own government. Two years later, as Iraqis were about to vote in their first democratic election, two-thirds wanted the Coalition troops out either immediately or as soon as the new government was established. (The model that Iraqis most admired was that of the United Arab Emirates, a loose federation of seven tribal states, each overseen by a prince, and ruled by a president who is, essentially, a king.) In 2006, when the Iraqi government was in place, a poll by the University of Maryland found that seventy-one per cent of Iraqis wanted their government to ask the Americans to leave within a year and when asked whether ?the US government plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq or to remove all its military forces once Iraq is stabilized,? 80% overall assume that the US plans to remain permanently, including 79% of Shia, 92% of Sunnis and 67% of Kurds. Which explains why 57% of Iraqis say that violence against American forces is acceptable, diminishing the prospect of order being restored as long as the occupation continues.Members of insurgent and militia groups in Iraq have welcomed recommendations for the withdrawal of US troops by the Iraq Study Group, reports this Integrated Regional Information Networks article. Abu Baker, a member of the Sunni insurgent group Muhammad?s Army, says that ?the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has been one of our foremost demands since 2004.? He further commented that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq ?is the reason why we continue to fight, resulting in the killing of thousands of Iraqis.? <a class="user" href="http://globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2006/1207fighters.htm&quot;&gt;http://globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resis ...</a>A poll released last month (by ABC News, the BBC, and the Japanese broadcaster NHK), half a year after the surge in American forces, found that nearly half of Iraqis favored an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, while thirty-four per cent of Iraqis, most of them Kurds, said that the U.S. should remain ?until security is restored.? Among Shiites, forty-four per cent favored immediate withdrawal, and among Sunnis the figure reached seventy-two per cent?substantial increases in both cases. <a class="user" href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/165.php?nid=&amp;id=&amp;pnt=165&amp;lb=hmpg2&quot;&gt;http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/ho ...</a>

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