GI Special 4L7: "The Battlefield Brings Itself Home" - December 7, 2006

Thomas F. Barton

Falah Shanshal, a Shiite lawmaker, said 115 of parliament’s 275 legislators have signed a statement rejecting the U.N. Security Council’s vote to extend the mandate of the 160,000 multinational forces in Iraq for another year, beginning Jan. 1."We demand to set a timetable for the withdrawal of these forces from Iraq," a statement by the lawmakers said. They have made similar protests before without any result.Some Iraqis, while critical of U.S. strategy in Iraq, said they feared any new policy would lead to more suffering for their country."They (U.S. officials) are defeated in Iraq. So they are trying to seek for an outlet to get out of their plight in Iraq. And I think the outlet will be at the expense of the Iraqi people," Maan al-Obeidi, a professor and political analyst at al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, told AP Television News.

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