IMPEACH BUSH

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 on Friday.

Baha al-Aaraji, a supporter of radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, told AFP that 144 members of the 275-seat national assembly had signed a draft law that would set a departure timetable for US troops.

However, other legislators said the bill would probably be watered down before becoming a non-binding petition, and that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would martial enough support to renew the US mandate next month.

"The signatures have been submitted to the speaker of parliament and, after that, a committee chaired by me was formed," Aaraji 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, mainly sought a role for the Baghdad 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.

But so far both Bush and Maliki have argued that withdrawal must depend on the security conditions, and that setting an arbitrary deadline would be dangerous.

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.

Opinion polls show that a majority of both American and Iraqi voters favour a US troop pull-out, 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.

On Friday suicide bombers killed at least 12 people and wounded 22 more in attacks on two police checkpoints in east Baghdad, a defence official said.

Petraeus's September date, although not intended as such by the military, 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.

In Baghdad the next key date 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 should be able to muster a majority to support it, even without Sadr faction votes.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Friday foreign troops could withdraw within one or two years, by which time Iraqi forces should be ready.

He made the comments in a speech at the Cambridge Union Society to students from the prestigious University of Cambridge in eastern England.

Asked when US and British troops should leave Iraq, Talabani replied: "I think within one or two years we will be able to recruit our forces... and tell goodbye to our friends."

Talabani also expressed concern over Thursday's US House of Representatives' decision to require Bush to show progress in Iraq by July before releasing further funding.

"We are concerned and we hope that Congress will review this decision and help the American army to stay until the Iraqi army will be ready to replace them," he said.