'The US has reached an agreement with Iraq on privileges and immunities for the growing number of troops based in the country, helping in the fight against the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
ISIL Death Eater group,' the new US ambassador said to the Guardians on Thursday.
Stuart Jones said 'Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has given assurances that US troops will receive immunity from prosecution.'
Under Iraq's former prime minister,
Nouri al-Maliki... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014...
, the issue was a major sticking point, ultimately leading to the decision to withdraw all remaining US troops in late 2011.
'That was a different situation and those troops would have had a different role,' Jones said.
'We have the assurances that we need from the government of Iraq on privileges and immunities,' he said. 'It's in the basis of our formal written communications between our governments and also based on the strategic framework agreement that is the legal basis of our partnership.'