Iraqi Parlimentary Call for Timetables

Not a surprising bit of information, just not the wisest.

A majority of Iraq’s parliament has signed a petition for a legislative timetable governing a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, several parliamentarians said today.

The withdrawal would only take place if the Iraqi security forces became strong enough to ensure that an American departure would not create a security vacuum or make the sectarian conflict worse, the petition’s sponsors said.

“The troop withdrawal would move in parallel with the building of Iraqi troops, but their stay should not be for a long time,” said Saleh al-Igili, a member of the parliamentary bloc allied with the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, which sponsored the petition.

Officials in the Sadrist bloc said that 144 of parliament’s 275 members — including Sunni and Shiite Arabs and at least one Kurd — had signed the petition. The document is now being developed into a draft bill by the parliament’s legal and foreign relations committees, said Bahaa al-Araji, a member of the Sadrist bloc and head of parliament’s legal committee.

Makes you wonder how much of this is related to the politics in Iraq, just as the timetable debate is strongly following political divides.

In some ways this is understandable because the Iraqi parliament wants to shore up their position and by making law that defines when the US will leave is a way to make them appear to be in control. In reality, they do have a level of control on that topic. But the Prime Minister stands against it and that still gives them the political advantage while not having to worry about actually having the US leave.

The article doesn't provide any dates from their proposed timetable. That information would be helpful in analyzing how strong the Sadr block is.