Iraq Denied the Call: Washington Said Otherwise
The government spokesperson said Iraq had received no advance notice of the attacks, contradicting the White House account directly and without qualification.
Iraq Denied the Call: Washington Said Otherwise
Iraq's government flatly denied coordinating with the United States and Saudi Arabia on strikes against Iran, after President Trump publicly claimed Iraqi officials had prior knowledge of the operation — a claim Baghdad called false, according to The Guardian.
The Iraqi prime minister postponed a scheduled trip to Riyadh in the hours that followed, a diplomatic signal quiet enough to miss if you weren't watching, and loud enough to matter if you were. The government spokesperson said Iraq had received no advance notice of the attacks, contradicting the White House account directly and without qualification.
The gap between those two versions is not a procedural dispute. Iraq shares a long border with Iran, hosts American troops on its soil, and has spent years threading the needle between Washington's pressure and Tehran's proximity. If Trump's claim is accurate, Baghdad is exposed domestically to accusations of complicity in strikes against a neighbor with deep ties to Iraqi Shia political factions. If Trump's claim is false, the White House is using an ally's name to legitimize a military operation that the US Senate failed, by a single vote, to halt.
Either way, Baghdad now sits at the center of a story it insists it never agreed to enter. The prime minister's cancelled Riyadh trip will not resolve that. It simply confirms that Iraq understands what it has walked into — whether it chose to or not.
