The last convoy of U.S. soldiers left Iraq and entered Kuwait Sunday.
The last of the vehicles filled with several hundred troops crossed the border at 7:38 a.m. - 0438 UTC - leaving behind just a couple hundred soldiers at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces ends nearly nine years of war and hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars.
The war in Iraq began in 2003 with a “shock and awe” campaign to oust dictator Saddam Hussein. The War against Saddam's military was won in 21 days. Despite pockets of crime, the next year was marked primarily with a search for those leaders of the Ba'athist Government of Iraq that had committed crimes against the Iraqi people, including Saddam Hussein himself. The First War in Iraq was won quickly.
During 2003 and 2004, remnants of the Fedayeen, Ba'athist supporters of Saddam, continued to harass Coalition Troops and to commit crimes against the Iraqi people, while Iranian supported Moqtada al-Sadr began to attack Sunni's and Coalition Troops. The 2nd War, against Saddam supporters, the Fedayeen, wained with Saddam's capture, and ended with his execution at the order of an Iraqi court.
In September 2004, the first wide spread attacks against US and Coalition Troops began. Violence against Coalition Troops, but primarily against Iraqis, led by elements of foreign born al-Qaeda and Iranian supported Terrorists continued to build. The Iraqi Civil War peaked in the summer of 2007 and began to ebb with the arrival of the final "Surge" Troops under the Petraeus Plan.
At the height of the war, more than 170,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Iraq at more than 500 bases. At the height of the war, 100 Iranian made EFP's, (explosively formed penetrators) were being captured monthly and more than 3,000 Iraqi civilians being murdered by Islamist Terrorists monthly. Though the Petraeus Plan was a comprehensive shift in strategy and tactics, which empowered local Iraqi leaders, sought to implement security and economic success at the local and national levels, it was known in US Political (and media) circles as "The Surge" for the additional Troops it required to achieve the peace.
During the testimony, Presidential Candidates, Sen Hillary Clinton, Sen Joe Biden, and Sen Barack Obama treated the General poorly and the hearing as a campaign stop. Sen Obama leaned back in his chair, chewing gum and ignoring the procedures, until it was his chance to rant. The New York Times gave "MoveOn,Org" special discounts to run a full page ad attacking the General as "General Betrayus" with no argument from the candidates they supported. By the time of the hearings, the tide had shifted against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the numbers were already showing the trend.
General Petraeus returned to testify to Congress in April 2008. The long term trends of Sustained Success of the Petraeus Plan were already evident, but the candidates still refused to acknowledge those successes. In March 2008, the Iranian backed "Special Groups" and Hezbollah launched a major offensive in British controlled Basra, days before General Petraeus was to testify before Congress about the sustained successes of the Petraeus Plan. Despite US Military recommendations to Prime Minister al-Maliki, he sent Iraqi units into Basra to put down the Iranian backed Shi'a uprising, successfully on the eve of the Petraeus testimony.
Special Groups and its specialized element of Hezbollah were put down with remarkable speed by the Iraqi Army, increasing the support for al-Maliki inside Iraq. Ties between al-Maliki and Iran would grow more apparent between 2007 and 2011 and Iraqis have accused the government of bringing Iranians into the government and polling stations to maintain his position.
Candidate Obama continued to campaign on promises to have all Troops out by July 2010 and to make the War in Afghanistan his first priority. Candidate Biden attempted to assure the American people that he would "always be in the room" when Candidate Obama was making foreign policy decisions. Representatives Barney Frank and Jack Murtha called for 25% cuts to DoD budgets and authorized Troops in uniform, prior to the 2008 elections. Nevertheless, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Sadr's Mehdi Militia, the break away Special Groups, and specialized Hezbollah were largely defeated by November 2008.
[And worse than Obama's promise was Paul's idiotic "just leave."]
After assuming office, President Obama largely ignored Iraq, but ordered the name changed from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn, and the name of the task force running the war from "Multi-National Forces-Iraq" to "US Forces-Iraq." To transparently reduce DoD Budgets, he transferred funding from supplementary budget bills to the DoD budget bill, without maintaining the same amount of funds. He also changed the "labels" of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from war to "Overseas Contingency Operations."
During 2011, President Obama sent Secretary of Defense Gates, CIA Chief Panetta, Secretary of Defense Panetta, Secretary of State Clinton, and Vice-President Biden to Baghdad to beg Troops to be allowed to stay, a year after his campaign promise to the American people to have had all of those 50,000 to 100,000 Troops out of Iraq. Al-Maliki refused the pleadings of the Obama Administration, preferring closer ties to Ahdiminijihadist and Iran.
By Saturday, fewer than 3,000 U.S. troops remained. As of Sunday morning, only the few hundred Troops guarding the US Embassy and its diplomats remain.
Critics have chastised the U.S. for leaving behind a destroyed country with thousands of widows and orphans, a people deeply divided along sectarian lines, and without rebuilding much of the devastated infrastructure, despite the fact that the US built a stronger and updated infrastructure by 2008 than existed in 2002.
Prime Minister Nouri a-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government struggles with a power-sharing arrangement among Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. He heads the government despite the fact that the secular Sunni parties gained more votes in the 2009 elections.
U.S. President Barack Obama says the future of Iraq is “in the hands of its own people.”
Stumble It!
