Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Secretary of Defence have both clarified on Monday that the US will not be withdrawing forces from Iraq.
This clarification came after the Head of the US Military Task Force in Iraq, Brigadier General William Seely in a letter to his Iraqi counterparts on Sunday, said that the US was preparing to leave the nation.
It read: “we respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.” It further said that the US “ would be repositioning troops over the coming days and weeks. In order to conduct this task, coalition forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner”.
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It further said that helicopters would be flying over Baghdad’s green zone in preparations over it.
The clarification came in from Washington DC, when the Pentagon’s Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley told reporters that “it was a mistake, an honest mistake, a draft unsigned letter, because we are moving around”.
“It shouldn’t have been sent”. He added.
The US Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, added that the letter was “inconsistent” with the US position.
The letter came after the Iraq Parliament voted to expel US forces from the nation. This in turn was necessitated after growing tensions between the US and Iran after the drone strike that killed Major General Qassim Soleimani, the head of the Quds force, an elite special force unit within the Iran Revolutionary Guards.