Iraqi Parliament Backs U.S. Withdrawal Bill

Tweet "BAGHDAD, May 10 -- A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq's legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress.

"The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require the Iraqi government to secure parliament's approval before any further extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007.

"'We haven't asked for the immediate withdrawal of multinational forces; we asked that we should build our security forces and make them qualified, and at that point there would be a withdrawal," said Bahaa al-Araji, a member of parliament allied with the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters drafted the bill. "But no one can accept the occupation of his country."

"In Iraq and the United States, there is deepening frustration among lawmakers and the public over President Bush's troop buildup, a policy that has yet to prevent widespread killing in Iraq. At the same time, Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are dispatching their emissaries in an urgent transatlantic gambit to shore up support.