Earlier this month, the Iraqi Parliament signed a proposed bill seeking the United States to declare a defined timetable for withdrawal and asked that US troop limits in Iraq be frozen and not bolstered. While President Bush has announced plans that more American forces are headed for Iraq, today he remarked…

“US President George W Bush, who has warned that a hasty US pullout from Iraq would be catastrophic, said on Thursday that US forces would leave if the fledgling Baghdad government asked them to.

“We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation,” he said at a White House press conference.

“If they were to say ‘leave’, we would leave.”

It’s no secret that most Iraqis want the occupation to end, and while the Parliament has made a statement by the majority of its members signing the proposed bill regarding withdrawal, the real test of just how much control they have will come if they actually pass the legislation and if President Bush then adheres to it without trying to influence the government’s leadership to oppose it.

Juan Cole’s adds some perspective on the matter, primarily with regards to the public resurfacing of Muqtada al-Sadr.

It is important to remember that there are crucial issues revolving around the reality of actually passing such a bill. The first, and most obvious, would be the survival of the government itself were the United States to leave. The second is, while combat operations might be curtailed and troops relocated or even removed from the country, the United States will most probably not abandon their efforts to ensure the security of the current government, and may very well continue to occupy the Green Zone and other military instillations throughout the country to ensure that if the nation were plunged into further civil war, they would be able to act to safeguard the existence of the government.

I’ll not say that I put faith in President Bush’s words. This is, after all, the same man that unabashedly claimed that his administration did not attempt to link the attacks of 9/11 to Iraq when scores of video footage proving that it did exist to discount that.

One also has to wonder if the President’s statement has to do with alleviating pressure on GOP Presidential candidates, for whom the issue is paramount and, given the actions of the current Republican administration, one that affords them little latitude. It would obviously serve the party better were the President to appear more flexible on such matters, even if he doesn’t plan to be, for the sake of giving a Republican candidate an actual chance in next year’s election. Personally, I think, from time to time, we’ll see the Bush administration ease up on its rhetoric specifically help the GOP gain ground. Last year’s congressional elections proved that the American people want change, and it must be of extreme concern that the same show of support could be given a Democratic presidential candidate were the current administration not to begin promoting a few flexibilities.