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Iraq PM clears way for military trials over Ramadi loss

Those moves, approved by the Cabinet and parliament, include eliminating the positions of Iraq’s deputy prime minister and three vice presidents, as well as ending party and sectarian quotas when choosing officials.

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Iraqis have held massive protests in recent weeks against corruption and poor government services, including power outages that have made a recent heat wave even more unbearable. AP’s earlier story is below.

“The withdrawal of the forces from Ramadi was unauthorised – the orders were opposite”, he said. Clashes broke out afterward.

“In other words, if he had elected to stay, he would still be there today”, Ghika told journalists in June.

The fall of Fallujah in January 2014 started the Islamic State group’s dramatic blitz across Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has approved a recommendation by investigators to begin court-martial proceedings against military commanders who surrendered the city of Ramadi to militants of the extremist Islamic State.

In a statement from his office, Abadi said the government would refer “a number of the leaders to the military judiciary for leaving their positions without orders and contrary to instructions (and) despite the issuance of a number of orders not to withdraw”.

The ministries of defence and interior will form investigative boards to look into why troops abandoned their weapons and equipment while fleeing, the statement added.

Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, fell to the Islamist militants in May in the most significant setback for Iraqi security forces in almost a year.

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Al Abadi previously said that forces in Ramadi “had to resist, and if they had resisted, we would not have lost Ramadi”.

A man looks at the site of a car bomb attack at the mainly Shi'ite district of Habibiya in Baghdad