American soldiers board a US Airforce C130 at Baghdad Airport. Sebastian Meyer | Corbis | Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Iraq's prime minister said that the U.S. military sent a letter regarding American troop withdrawal from the country, Reuters reported Tuesday, further deepening confusion over plans for troops in the region. It's the latest in a messy string of events sparked by a U.S. airstrike that killed Iran's top general. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said that his country received an English and Arabic version of the letter but that they were not identical. Therefore, Iraq requested clarifications on U.S. plans.

The news comes on the heels of the Pentagon's admission that the letter informing Iraq's Defense Ministry that U.S.-led coalition troops would leave Iraq "was a mistake." "A draft unsigned letter that was acquired by an Iraqi official has no import. It has no value whatsoever," Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Tuesday in an interview with CNN. "I will say this, the United States is not withdrawing from Iraq. In fact, in my conversations with my counterpart, the Iraqi defense minister, I conveyed to him that we do want to stay in Iraq and we want to continue the important defeat ISIS mission," he added. "That letter is a draft, it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should never have been released," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday. "Poorly worded, implies withdrawal," Milley said. "That is not what's happening," he continued. Alongside Milley, Esper told reporters earlier in the day that the U.S. was "repositioning forces throughout the region."