So, Obama has announced that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year. But why are they leaving? As usual, Glenn Greenwald has it right: Bush’s 2008 agreement with Iraq, expiring Status of Forces Agreement, no immunity for U.S. troops if they stayed.
But I note that this is the third time the war in Iraq has ended. As I pointed out in “When Will the Iraq War Really End?“, the first time was on May 1, 2003, when President Bush announced — in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner — that “the United States and our allies have prevailed” and “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” This was followed by the deaths of 4,300 more U.S. soldiers. The second ending of the Iraq war was on August 31, 2010, when President Obama proclaimed that “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended” and “Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.” Since then, 49 more U.S. soldiers have died in vain.
But as Greenwald also points out, the U.S. will still have a “small army” remain indefinitely in Iraq, plus many private contractors. Hey, why not? We still have thousands of U.S. troops in Korea, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
8:34 am on October 22, 2011
