四 川 铁 FourRiverIron

I suspect those remaining 16,000 U.S. diplomats and civilian contractors who will stay in Iraq are civilian mercenaries, who are effectively American troops.

And if you remember maybe a year ago Obama had a similar "withdraw" from Iraq where all American troops were removed, except for a small peace keeping force which is the current 39,000 troops. Or at least that is the BS Obama told us.

Source

U.S. to pull troops out of Iraq by end of year

Oct. 22, 2011 12:00 AM

Washington Post

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Friday that the United States will withdraw all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year, ending a long war that deeply divided the country over its origins and the American lives it consumed.

In a Friday-morning video conference, Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to a complete U.S. military departure that will fulfill a promise important to Obama's re-election effort. The decision drew sharp criticism from his Republican rivals, as well as expressions of relieved support from those who believe it is time for the United States to conclude a war Obama once called "dumb."

For months, U.S. and Iraqi officials had been negotiating the terms of an accord that would have kept several thousand U.S. troops in Iraq for special operations and training beyond the year-end deadline set by the George W. Bush administration.

But Obama and Maliki failed to reach agreement on the legal status of U.S. troops who would stay in Iraq beyond Dec. 31. As a result, only a contingent of fewer than 200 Marines assigned to help protect the large U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad will remain, along with a small number of other personnel to provide training related to new military sales and other tasks.

"The rest of our troops in Iraq will come home," Obama said Friday at the White House, adding that they will "be home for the holidays."

"After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," he said.

The negotiations foundered over the U.S. demand that American troops receive legal immunity for their actions, a request Maliki was ultimately unable to sell to the anti-U.S. elements of his governing coalition after a war that many Iraqis believe has permanently altered their country for the worse.

The departure of U.S. forces could pose security problems for the Iraqi government, still beset by sectarian and ethnic divisions.

There are 39,000 U.S. troops in Iraq today, about 100,000 fewer than when Obama took office. About 16,000 U.S. diplomats and civilian contractors will remain posted in Iraq.

If sectarian strife or other violence should break out in Iraq once U.S. forces have left, Obama could be blamed for abandoning Iraq before it was ready to protect itself.

Such criticism came quickly Friday from Republicans vying for the presidency next year.

But the result also allows for a more definitive conclusion to the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, which has cost the United States nearly $1 trillion and more than 4,400 American lives.

Obama, who separated himself from the crowded Democratic field in 2008 in part through his clear opposition to the Iraq war, will be able to tell voters as he confronts a difficult re-election campaign that he has overseen the promised end to the Iraq conflict.

Although foreign policy does not rank high in voters' minds at a time of economic stress at home, Obama used his appearance Friday to showcase some of his accomplishments in winding down expensive wars and killing declared enemies.

Obama noted that, after the initial troop surge he authorized in Afghanistan, he is withdrawing forces from that decade-old battlefield. He recalled the killing of Osama bin Laden in May and the "definitive end" of Moammar Gadhafi's long, erratic rule in Libya.

"So to sum up, the United States is moving forward from a position of strength," Obama said before shifting the focus of his brief remarks to the economy.

"Because, after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build, and the nation that we will build, is our own, an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we've restored our leadership around the globe," he said.

The plan conforms to the agreement negotiated by the Bush administration to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq at the end of 2011, something that many of Obama's Republican rivals failed to note in statements criticizing the complete withdrawal.

Among them was Mitt Romney, a front-runner for the nomination who has staked out a hawkish foreign-policy position. In a statement, Romney said that the "astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women."

Obama administration officials and Maliki's government have focused on how many U.S. troops should stay to continue training Iraqi national forces and monitoring potential flash points, such as the boundary between the Kurdish north and the rest of Iraq.

"Our forces are good, but not to a sufficient degree that allows them to face external and internal challenges alone," Col. Salam Khaled of the 6th Brigade of the Iraqi army said Friday. "The loyalty of forces is not to their homeland. The loyalty is to the political parties and to the sects."

Administration officials said Iraqi forces are indeed prepared to preserve the nation's stability.

"One assessment after another about the Iraqi security forces came back saying these guys are ready, these guys are capable, these guys are proven," Denis McDonough, deputy national-security adviser, told reporters.

Obama's announcement came as Turkey engaged in counteroffensive strikes against Kurdish rebels in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The action is supported by NATO and the United States.

In the case of the Kurdish region, the U.S. troop withdrawal could be positive "because ( the Americans) are helping Turkey in the aggression," said independent Iraqi lawmaker Mahmoud Othman, who is from the region. "So, maybe it's better for them not to be around."

In a statement this week, factional leader Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who strongly opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq, said that there must first be a complete withdrawal and that training will be allowed "only if a new agreement has been concluded once the withdrawal is completed and the oppressed Iraqi people are financially compensated."

Earlier this year, as concerns mounted over ongoing insurgent strikes and Iranian influence in Iraq, the administration made clear its willingness to continue tasks such as training, air defense, intelligence and reconnaissance, and joint counterterrorism missions.

Throughout the summer, the White House urged the Iraqis to come up with a list of tasks they would like U.S. forces to continue and informally spoke of leaving 3,000 to 10,000 troops behind.

Ultimately, minority Kurdish and Sunni leaders pressed for an agreement that would allow U.S. troops to remain. But Sadr and other opponents continued to oppose a deal, and the talks finally faltered on the immunity question.

Here is an article from a little over a year ago in August of 2010 when Obama first claimed to be withdrawing American troops and winning the war in Iraq.

This is the 2nd time we have "won" the war in Iraq!!!!

Here is an article from about a year and 2 months ago in Aug of 2010 where we "won" the war in Iraq and Obama was withdrawing all the troops. Gee sounds just like today's Iraq withdrawal.

Of course that withdrawal from Iraq was a big lie like the current withdrawal from Iraq. As the article says "some 50,000 will stay another year"

After the current victory and withdrawal from Iraq only 16,000 mercenaries (not combat troops) will stay in Iraq.

Source

U.S. combat troops leave Iraq

Aug. 19, 2010 06:47 AM

Associated Press

KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait - A line of heavily armored American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the pre-dawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait early Thursday and rolled into history.

For the troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism but lightened by the whoops and cheers of soldiers one step closer to going home. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.

When 18-year-old Spc. Luke Dill first rolled into Iraq as part of the U.S. invasion, his Humvee was so vulnerable to bombs that the troops lined its floor with flak jackets.

Now 25 and a staff sergeant after two tours of duty, he rode out of Iraq this week in a Stryker, an eight-wheeled behemoth encrusted with armor and add-ons to ward off grenades and other projectiles.

"It's something I'm going to be proud of for the rest of my life - the fact that I came in on the initial push and now I'm leaving with the last of the combat units," he said.

He remembered three straight days of mortar attacks outside the city of Najaf in 2003, so noisy that after the firing ended, the silence kept him awake at night. He recalled the night skies over the northern city of Mosul being lit up by tracer bullets from almost every direction.

Now, waiting for him back in Olympia, Wash., is the "Big Boy" Harley-Davidson he purchased from one of the motorcycle company's dealerships at U.S. bases in Iraq - a vivid illustration of how embedded the American presence has become since the invasion of March 20, 2003.

That presence is far from over. Scatterings of troops still await departure, and some 50,000 will stay another year in what is designated as a noncombat role. They will carry weapons to defend themselves and accompany Iraqi troops on missions (but only if asked). Special forces will continue to help Iraqis hunt for terrorists.

So the U.S. death toll - at least 4,415 by Pentagon count as of Wednesday - may not yet be final.

The Stryker brigade, based in Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and named for the vehicle that delivers troops into and out of battle, has lost 34 troops in Iraq. It was at the forefront of many of the fiercest battles, including operations in eastern Baghdad and Diyala province, an epicenter of the insurgency, during "the surge" of 2007. It evacuated troops at the battle of Tarmiyah, an outpost where 28 out of 34 soldiers were wounded holding off insurgents.

The U.S. military kept a tight lid on security, restricting the media embedded with the U.S. troops from reporting on the brigade's movements until they were almost to the border.

The brigade's leadership volunteered to have half of its 4,000 soldiers depart overland instead of taking the traditional flight out, a decision that allowed the unit to keep 360 Strykers in the country for an extra three weeks. The remainder of the brigade flew out with the last of the troops slated to leave later Thursday.

U.S. commanders say it was the brigade's idea to drive out, not an order from on high. The intent was to keep additional firepower handy through the "period of angst" that followed Iraq's inconclusive March 7 election, said brigade chief, Col. John Norris.

It took months of preparation to move the troops and armor across more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) of desert highway through potentially hostile territory.

The Strykers left the Baghdad area in separate convoys over a four-day period, traveling at night because the U.S.-Iraq security pact - and security worries - limit troop movements by day.

Along the way, phalanxes of American military Humvees sat at overpasses, soldiers patrolled the highways for roadside bombs, and Apache attack helicopters circled overhead as the Strykers refueled alongside the highway.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Gus McKinney, a brigade intelligence officer, acknowledged that moving the convoys overland put soldiers at risk, but said the danger was less than in past.

The biggest threat was roadside bombs planted by Shiite extremist groups who have a strong foothold in the south, McKinney said.

But except for camels straying into the road, and breakdowns that required some vehicles to be towed, there were no incidents. The last of the Strykers rolled across the border just before 4 a.m. Thursday into Kuwait, honking their horns and waving to the small crowd gathered at the crossing.

The brigade's leadership was on hand to greet the troops after they crossed the border and pulled into a parking lot where they shed their sweaty armor and stumbled out of their Strykers.

"This is powerful. This is exciting for me. As a commander, this means that all of my soldiers are safely inside of Kuwait and getting ready to redeploy back to their families," Norris told The Associated Press.

The worst of the ride was conditions inside the Strykers - sitting for hours in a cramped space - and the temperatures outside that reached 50 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit).

The driver's compartment is called the "hellhole" because it sits over the engine and becomes almost unbearably hot. The vehicle commander and gunner can sit up in hatches to see the outside world. At the tail end are hatches for two gunners. Eight passengers - an infantry squad in combat conditions - can squeeze in the back.

Riding as a passenger felt a bit like being in a World War II-era submarine - a tight fit and no windows. The air conditioning was switched off to save fuel on the long ride south to Kuwait. Men dozed or listened to music on earphones.

Once out of Iraq, there was still work to be done. Vehicles had to be stripped of ammunition and spare tires, and eventually washed and packed for shipment home.

Meanwhile, to the north, insurgents kept up a relentless campaign against the country's institutions and security forces, killing five Iraqi government employees in roadside bombings and other attacks Wednesday. Coming a day after a suicide bomber killed 61 army recruits in central Baghdad, the latest violence highlighted the shaky reality left by the departing U.S. combat force and five months of stalemate over forming Iraq's next government.

For Dill, who reached Kuwait with an earlier convoy, the withdrawal engendered feelings of relief. His mission - to get his squad safely out of Iraq - was accomplished.

Standing alongside a hulking Stryker, his shirt stained with sweat, he acknowledged the men who weren't there to experience the day with him.

"I know that to my brothers in arms who fought and died, this day would probably mean a lot, to finally see us getting out of here," he said.

This is the 2nd time Obama has claimed victory in Iraq. This is the 2nd time Obama is claiming to withdraw the troops from Iraq.

Here are some articles on Obama first victory and withdrawal from Iraq.

Those politicians seem to think that Americans are a bunch of suckers and will believe anything they tell us.

Sadly for most people this is true and they believe the BS they are fed from our government masters hook, line and sinker.

Of course alleged Libertarian Mike Renzulli will probably tell you that I am making this all up and that I really love the war in Iraq.

Of course that is a big lie. You can read my post from the last 10 years and I have been against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from the start.