Article snippet: Defense Secretary MORE denied Monday that U.S. troops would withdraw from Iraq after a letter circulated online suggested otherwise. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the letter — which said U.S. troops were preparing for “onward movement” — was a draft that should not have been released. “That letter is a draft, it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released,” Milley told reporters in an off-camera briefing. “Poorly worded, implies withdrawal. That’s not what’s happening.” Still, the confusion the letter prompted underscored the chaos that has been unleashed in the Middle East since MORE ordered a military strike that killed a top Iranian military commander. The U.S. presence in Iraq has become a flashpoint amid the U.S. tensions with Iran as a proxy war with Iran has developed in Iraq. The issue came to a head last week when a U.S. military strike killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, while he was at the Baghdad International Airport. Officials in Baghdad condemned the strike as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty that would inflame regional tensions. Iraqi officials had already been fuming over the U.S. decision to unilaterally strike an Iran-backed militia in Iraq it blamed for the death of an American contractor. On Sunday, the Iraqi parliament approved a resolution to terminate the agreement that allows for U.S. troops in the count... Link to the full article to read more