US and Israel Seek to Monopolize Arms Sales in Iraq

Iraq said on Wednesday that U.S. and Israeli arms companies are pressuring the country not to buy military equipment from other states, local media reported.

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"Companies and businessmen from both countries want Iraq not to buy weapons from other developed countries," Badr al-Ziyadi, a member of the Security and Defense Committee of the Iraqi Parliament, said Wednesday.

According to al-Ziyadi, recently "a delegation from Iraq was planning to travel to Russia, China, and Ukraine to buy air defense missiles to protect their territory from possible aggression," he added.

"The trip could not take place, due to the influence of companies and businessmen from the United States and Israel,"  Al-Ziyadi reported.

It is difficult not to give in to pressure when "U.S. companies and the Israeli regime control the arms markets," he said. 

The main difficulty is that "U.S. and Israeli companies only try to sell waste weapons to Iraq. Washington refuses to provide us with sophisticated weapons and ammunition," he said. 

These statements occurred amid an increasingly tumultuous context. The U.S. troops regularly bomb the positions of Iraq's People's Mobilization Units.

These aggressions have intensified the demands of the Arab country, which is calling for the definitive withdrawal of U.S. troops from the territory. 

The tensions between these countries reached their highest point after the brutal murder of the Iranian official Qasem Soleimani, in aggression perpetrated by Washington in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, last January 3.