Iraqi MPs are gathering votes to force their government to set a deadline for US forces to withdraw from the country and think they have a majority, a leading Shiite politician said Friday.
Baha al-Aaraji, a supporter of radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said that 144 members of the 275-seat national assembly had signed a draft law that would set a departure timetable for US troops.
"The signatures have been submitted to the speaker of parliament and, after that, a committee chaired by me was formed," he said.
Aaraji's committee has asked Iraq's defence, interior and national security ministries to suggest a date by which their forces will be ready to take charge of security operations currently overseen by US forces.
"We've received two answers and now the committee is holding a series of meetings. We could finish within the next few days, and then the law will be discussed and voted on," Aaraji said.
"Many people support it. I signed it myself," said Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman, while insisting that most members regard the vote as a non-binding petition rather than a law that would require a withdrawal.
Othman said Sadr's supporters were focusing too hard on the withdrawal side of the bill while others, despite supporting the draft, were mainly seeking a role for the Iraqi parliament in making the eventual decision.
"They want to build Iraqi forces to take over when the Americans withdraw while they are withdrawing American forces. The two processes go hand in hand," he said, while confirming his support for a timetable.
"A majority of parliamentarians want this objective timetable agreed upon between Iraqis and Americans," he said.
The moves in Iraq's parliament mirror those in Washington, where a Democrat controlled Congress has attempted to force President George W. Bush to set a date to begin bringing home the 142,000 US troops in Iraq.
Thus far, however, both Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have argued that withdrawal must depend on the conditions on the battlefield and said that it would be dangerous to set an arbitrary deadline.
Bush has already vetoed one US bill tying military funding to a timetable and Maliki could refuse to endorse any law passed by his parliament.
Both leaders, however, expend political capital every time they defy their elected legislatures.
Opinion polls show that a majority of both American and Iraqi voters favour a US troop withdrawal, although there must be some caution over the accuracy of surveys conducted amid the chaos in Iraq.
The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has promised to report back to Washington in September on whether his strategy of flooding an extra 28,000 troops into the Baghdad region is quelling the violence.
Although not intended as such by the military, this date has now become an informal cut-off point in Washington after which even Bush's Republican allies might find it hard to justify perpetuating a mission seen as failing.
Back in Baghdad, the next key date in the debate will be June 30, when Maliki's government will decide whether or not to ask the United Nations to renew its mandate for the US military presence in Iraq for six months.
Othman said he expected parliament to demand the right to have a say in this decision, but admitted that Maliki ought to be able to scrape together a majority to support it, even without the votes of Sadr's faction.
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