{"id":201286,"date":"2020-01-24T08:13:58","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T08:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=201286"},"modified":"2020-01-26T08:37:13","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T08:37:13","slug":"patriot-missile-system-deployment-violates-iraq-sovereignty-lawmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=201286","title":{"rendered":"Patriot missile system deployment violates Iraq sovereignty: Lawmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 Jan 23, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Patriot missile battery. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

An Iraqi legislator has condemned US plans to install Patriot missile systems<\/a><\/span> in the Arab country, saying such deployment violates Iraq\u2019s sovereignty.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iraqi parliament represents all political groups and currents. The (parliamentary) decision demanding\u00a0the withdrawal of US military forces\u00a0is supported by the public opinion. Therefore, the [American] troops\u2019 attempt to deploy Patriot missile systems in their bases in order to beef up their combat capabilities is rejected and considered a violation of our sovereignty,\u201d Karim Alawi, a member of the\u00a0parliament’s security\u00a0and defense committee, told\u00a0Arabic-language Baghdad Today news agency<\/strong><\/span><\/a> on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe presence of US forces in Iraq is illegal. The recent parliamentary decision is clear. The ball is now in the government\u2019s court to get those forces out. If it is not implemented, there will a reaction from all fronts, including filing a complaint with the United Nations and other Islamic organizations with the aim of removing American troops.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said that Iraqis will march in Baghdad on Friday to deliver the message to American forces that \u201cIraqi people reject their presence and it is time they left their bases.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The US is considering deploying the anti-missile system to purportedly protect American troops in Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision came after Iran on January 8 fired a number of ballistic missiles at Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq\u2019s western province of Andar, where more than 1,000 US troops are based.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

US soldiers clear rubble at the Ain al-Asad military airbase in Anbar province after an Iranian missile strike. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The attack was in\u00a0retaliation\u00a0for US President Donald Trump\u2019s authorization of a drone strike that assassinated Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC),\u00a0the second-in-command of Iraq\u2019s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis,\u00a0and their companions near Baghdad International Airport on January 3.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fox News television news network claimed at the time that there were no US missile systems in position to shoot down the Iranian missiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, eleven US soldiers were flown from Iraq to US medical facilities in Germany and Kuwait for further evaluation of concussion-like symptoms in the wake of the Iranian missile attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

Navy Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for US Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Middle East, also said on Tuesday evening that additional US troops had been flown out of Iraq for closer evaluation of potential concussion injuries but did provide an exact number.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs medical treatment and evaluations in theater continue, additional service members have been identified as having potential injuries,\u201d Urban said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese service members \u2013 out of an abundance of caution \u2013 have been transported to Landstuhl, Germany, for further evaluations and necessary treatment on an outpatient basis. Given the nature of injuries already noted, it is possible additional injuries may be identified in the future,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two days after the US air raid targeting General Soleimani, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill<\/a> demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Late on January 9, Iraq\u2019s caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a\u00a0statement<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0released by the Iraqi premier\u2019s office, Abdul-Mahdi \u201crequested that delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement the parliament’s decision for the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq\u201d in a phone call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities and this was a violation of the bilateral agreements,\u201d the statement added.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US State Department bluntly rejected the request\u00a0the following day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US State Department said in a statement that Washington would not hold discussions with Baghdad regarding US troop withdrawal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership \u2014 not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East,\u201d State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leading Iraqi legislator protests U.S. plan to deploy Patriot missile systems in Iraq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran","category-Iraq"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201286"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201290,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201286\/revisions\/201290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}