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		</div><p>The US has no alternative and must pull its troops out of Iraq, or else face an impending crisis, the country’s outgoing prime minister says.</p>
<p>Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who resigned in November amid mass anti-government protests, said Iraq wants a US troop withdrawal to avoid further escalation as tensions soar between American and Iran.</p>
<p>His comments came just days after a US air strike killed Iran’s top general, shortly after he arrived at Baghdad’s international airport.</p>
<p>A senior Iraqi commander of an Iran-backed militia was also killed in Friday’s drone strike.</p>
<p><em>“We have no exit but this, otherwise we are speeding toward confrontation,”</em> Mr Abdul-Mahdi said in a pre-recorded televised speech following a weekly cabinet meeting.</p>
<p>He said the “historic decision” was necessary, “otherwise we will not be taken seriously”.</p>
<p>US troops are present in Iraq based on a request by the government in 2014, when vast swathes of the country were being overrun by the so-called Islamic State group.</p>
<p>But now that IS has been largely defeated, Mr Abdul-Mahdi said, the mission has devolved into a US-Iran proxy war.</p>
<p>Iraq was barely starting to recover from the devastating four-year war against IS when mass protests erupted in October against the country’s ruling elite, forcing Mr Abdul-Mahdi to resign two months later. He has not been replaced.</p>
<p>Referring to the fight against IS extremists, he said: <em>“Iraq did its part to fight in the war, and I see that any harm to Iraq will be harmful to all regional states and the whole world.”</em></p>
<p>A letter from Brigadier General William H. Seely, the commander of the US taskforce in Iraq, to his Iraqi counterpart, dated Monday, had said the US-led coalition would be “repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement”.</p>
<p>Many media outlets initially reported that was formal notice that the US was withdrawing forces on Iraqi soil.</p>
<p>US defence secretary Mark Esper later clarified to reporters that there were no plans for American troops to leave Iraq.</p>
<p>General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the letter had been “an honest mistake”.</p>
<p>Mr Abdul-Mahdi responded that Iraqi authorities had thought the letter was legitimate when it was received, and were blindsided when US officials said it was sent in error.</p>
<p><em>“After four to five hours it was said that the letter was wrong,”</em> Mr Abdul-Mahdi said. <em>“The letter clearly indicates a withdrawal.”</em></p>
<p><em>“So in the future, what should we do if we get such a request? We should check if it is authentic or not? If we are late, then they will tell us that we are late,”</em> he said.</p>
<p>The prime minister’s office had immediately sent the letter to the Iraq foreign minister and Iraq’s ambassador in Washington and other parties, Mr Abdul-Mahdi said.</p>
<p>An initial Arabic translation of the letter had contradicted the English version, he added, and another copy was then resent.</p>
<p><em>“We have to hold discussions in order to reach the best ways for a withdrawal,”</em> he said.</p>
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