I suspect the American government would love to continue the war based on this statement
But negotiations could resume next year on whether additional American military personnel can return to further assist their Iraqi counterparts.One reason the American Empire is leaving Iraq is the puppet government installed by the American Empire has refused to let American troops who murder Iraq citizens have unlimited immunity and not be subject to criminal charges for any crimes they commit.
Robert Robb
Leaving a large footprint in Iraq
Although U.S. troops will be out of Iraq shortly, we will still have a diplomatic "mission" with an estimated 16,000 people in the country. Post-Saddam Iraq has to find its own place in the uneasy intersection of Shia and Sunni regional powers. Such a large ongoing U.S. presence makes that task harder, not easier.
Treating Iraqi prisoners with dignity and respect.
After more than 8 1/2 years, Iraq war draws to a quiet close
By Liz Sly and Craig Whitlock, Updated: Thursday, December 15, 3:36 AM
BAGHDAD — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta paid solemn tribute on Thursday to an “independent, free and sovereign Iraq” and declared the official end to the Iraq war, formally wrapping up the U.S. military’s 81 / 2-year mission in the country.
“After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real,” Panetta said at a ceremony at Baghdad ‘s international airport. “To be sure, the cost was high – in blood and treasure for the United States, and for the Iraqi people. Those lives were not lost in vain. ”
The 1:15 p.m. ceremony (5:15 a.m. in Washington) effectively ended the war two weeks earlier than was necessary under the terms of the security agreement signed by the U.S. and Iraqi governments in 2008, which stipulated that the troops must be gone by Dec. 31.
But commanders decided there was no need to keep troops in Iraq through the Christmas holidays given that talks on maintaining a U.S. presence beyond the deadline had failed. The date of the final ceremony had been kept secret for weeks, so as not to give insurgents or militias an opportunity to stage attacks.
Dignitaries and a small crowd of military personnel in fatigues gathered at a terminal in the Baghdad airport, which until now had been operated by the U.S. military. In the future, it will be overseen by the State Department, which is assuming responsibility for a massive, $6 billion civilian effort to sustain American influence in Iraq beyond the troops’ departure.
The white flag of United States Force-Iraq was carefully folded and put away, and Panetta took the podium.
“No words, no ceremony can provide full tribute to the sacrifices which have brought this day to pass,” the defense secretary said. “I’m reminded of what President Lincoln said in Gettysburg, about a different war, in a different time. His words echo through the years as we pay tribute to the fallen in this war: ‘The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.’ ”
In his speech, Panetta singled out U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey and Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, for overseeing the rapid withdrawal of 50,000 troops in recent months and the closure of dozens of bases.
But he paid special tribute to the more than 1 million U.S. troops who have served war duty in Iraq since 2003, including about 4,487 who were killed and some 30,000 who were wounded.
“You have done everything your nation has asked you to do and more,” he said. “You came to this ‘Land Between the Rivers’ again and again and again.You did not know whether you’d return to your loved ones.
“You will leave with great pride, lasting pride, secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace.”
Panetta also paid homage to military families who, “through deployment after deployment after deployment . . . withstood the strain, the sacrifice and the heartbreak of watching their loved ones go off to war.”
“Together with the Iraqi people,” he added, “the United States welcomes the next stage in U.S.-Iraqi relations.”
And with that, the U.S. military’s mission was declared over, eight years, eight months and 25 days after it began.
Panetta arrived in Baghdad after a two-day stop to visit troops in Afghanistan. He was making his first visit to Iraq since becoming defense secretary in July, although he also visited the country during his tenure as CIA director and prior to that as a member of the Iraq Study Group, an advisory panel of foreign policy veterans that sought to change the Bush administration’s approach to the war.
In recent days, during visits to Djibouti and Afghanistan, Panetta refrained from declaring victory in Iraq or “mission accomplished,” as the Bush administration did prematurely in 2003. Instead, he has acknowledged divisions and regrets among U.S. lawmakers and the American people in general, while trying to frame Iraq’s future in a guarded sense of optimism.
“In many ways I think we can all take some satisfaction — regardless of whether you are for or against how we got into Iraq, the fact is we can take some satisfaction in the fact that we are now heading them in the right direction,” Panetta told an audience of U.S. diplomats Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
In the end, Panetta described the purpose of the war as an attempt to turn Iraq into a stable, self-governing democracy after decades of dictatorship under Saddam Hussein. During his trip to Afghanistan, he did not name Hussein directly and made no mention of the failed search for weapons of mass destruction, which the Bush administration had cited as justification for the 2003 invasion.
“It’s a mission whose goal was to establish an Iraq that could govern and secure itself,” Panetta said Wednesday. “And we have done that. We are giving Iraq an opportunity to be able to govern itself and to secure itself into the future, and to enjoy, hopefully, the benefits of a democracy.”
“It won’t be easy. There will be challenges. They’ll face the challenges of terrorism. They’ll face the challenges of those that would want to divide that country. They’ll face the challenges, the test of democracy,” he said. “They have the opportunity to be able to do that. And because of the blood that was spilled by Americans, because of the blood that was spilled by Iraqis, they now have that chance.”
Many Iraqis still find it hard to believe that the U.S. troops are actually leaving, after a war in which more than 100,000 Iraqi lives were lost and more than $800 billion was spent by U.S. taxpayers on the military effort and reconstruction. At the war’s peak in 2007, there were 170,000 U.S soldiers in Iraq, although that number had dwindled to 50,000 over the past year
The withdrawal will have little immediate impact on the lives of most Iraqis. U.S. troops pulled out of the cities in 2009 and halted combat operations a year later. For more than a year, they have been training the Iraqi security forces on military bases, largely out of public sight, although Special Forces have continued to conduct counterterrorism operations.
Many Iraqis were unaware that the departure was imminent, although in recent days, the domestic press has been speculating that it might take place sooner than anticipated.
On Wednesday, thousands of people in the mostly Sunni town of Fallujah, where Marines fought the biggest battle of the war in 2004, took to the streets to celebrate. They burned American and Israeli flags, and carried a banner declaring Fallujah to be “the city of resistance.”
Some residents, nevertheless, expressed misgivings, even as they said they were glad to see the Americans go. Bashar al-Nadeq, 32, said he could not help but be happy because he spent two years in the Camp Bucca prison camp after a cousin to whom he owed money told the U.S. military that he was a terrorist.
But he fears simmering sectarian tensions could erupt in violence once again, and he does not plan to celebrate.
“What’s the point of lighting a candle at the beginning of a tunnel when you know you will be walking in darkness?” he said at his car wash, near the center of the battle-scarred town. “I am happy they are going, but I know my happiness won’t last for long.”
U.S. war in Iraq officially ends
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD – The U.S. war in Iraq — a conflict that killed more than 4,500 American troops, cost $800 billion and divided the nation — officially ended with a ceremony held under tight security.
"To be sure, the cost was high — in blood and treasure for the United States and also for the Iraqi people," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called. "But those lives have not been lost in vain."
The fighting resulted, Panetta said, in a "free and sovereign Iraq."
He also warned that the Iraq will be tested by terrorism and other threats. The U.S., he said, remains committed to Iraq's success.
Apache attack helicopters clattered overhead, a sign that the country remains dangerous.
"We are out looking for guys who could pose a threat," said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the military's top spokesman in Iraq.
About 4,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, their withdrawal expected to be complete by the end of the month.
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, who commanded the First Ar division in 2003, said the first Gulf War and the current one have defined a generation of U.S. troops.
"We've paid a great price here, and it's a price worth paying," Dempsey said.
Thursday's ceremony commemorated the "end of mission." The flag for the U.S. military in Iraq — white with the symbol of its headquarters in the center — was wrapped and placed in a camouflage sheath by Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top commander.
Austin ordered troops to cross the border into Iraq from Kuwait in 2003, and is overseeing their complete withdrawal.
The ceremony was "an especially poignant moment for me," Austin said.
Austin acknowledged the more than 30,000 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq.
"Please know you will always have a place in our formation," Austin said.
Bringing American freedom and democracy to Iraq.
U.S. military packs up its flag, ends Iraq war
December 15, 2011, 2:47 a.m.
BAGHDAD— The U.S military officially ended its war in Iraq on Thursday, packing up a military flag at a ceremony with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
The last 4,000 American troops will withdraw by the end of the year, leaving Iraq still tackling a weakened but stubborn insurgency, sectarian tensions and political uncertainty.
"After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real," Panetta said at the ceremony.
U.S. soldiers rolled up the flag for American forces in Iraq and slipped it into a camouflage-coloured sleeve.
Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives in a war that began with a "Shock and Awe" campaign of missiles pounding Baghdad, but later descended into a bloody sectarian struggle between long-oppressed majority Shi'ites and their former Sunni masters.
Saddam is dead, an uneasy politics is at work and the violence has ebbed. But Iraq still struggles with the insurgency, a fragile power-sharing government and an oil-reliant economy plagued by power shortages and corruption.
In Falluja, the former heartland of an al Qaeda insurgency and scene of some of the worst fighting in the war, several thousand Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal on Wednesday, some burning U.S. flags and waving pictures of dead relatives.
Iraq's neighbours will keep a close watch on how Baghdad will confront its problems without the buffer of a U.S. military presence, while a crisis in neighbouring Syria threatens to upset the region's sectarian and ethnic balance.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who made an election promise to bring troops home, told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that Washington will remain a loyal partner after the last troops roll across the Kuwaiti border.
Iraq's Shi'ite leadership presents the withdrawal as a new start for the country's sovereignty, but many Iraqis question which direction the nation will take once U.S. troops leave.
Some fear more sectarian strife or an al Qaeda return to sow terror in the cities. A squabble between Kurds in their northern semi-autonomous enclave and the Iraqi Arab central government over disputed territories and oil is another flashpoint.
Violence has ebbed since the bloodier days of sectarian slaughter when suicide bombers and hit squads claimed hundreds of victims a day at times as the country descended into tit-for-tat killings between the Sunni and Shi'ite communities.
In 2006 alone, 17,800 Iraqi military and civilians were killed in violence.
Iraqi security forces are generally seen as capable of containing the remaining Sunni Islamist insurgency and the rival Shi'ite militias U.S. officials say are backed by Iran.
But even for those enjoying a sense of sovereignty, security is still a major worry. Attacks now target local Iraqi government offices and security forces in an attempt show that the authorities are not in control.
"I am happy they are leaving. This is my country and they should leave," said Samer Saad, a soccer coach. "But I am worried because we need to be safe. We are worried because all the militias will start to come back."
U.S. war in Iraq formally ends with symbolic ceremony
Dec. 15, 2011 06:35 AM
Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- After nearly nine years, 4,500 American dead, 32,000 wounded and more than $800 billion, U.S. officials formally shut down the war in Iraq -- a conflict that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said was worth the price in blood and money, as it set Iraq on a path to democracy.
Panetta stepped off his military plane in Baghdad Thursday as the leader of America's war in Iraq, but will leave as one of many top U.S. and global officials who hope to work with the struggling nation as it tries to find its new place in the Middle East and the broader world.
More than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion in 2003, according to the Iraq Body Count website. Bombings and gun battles are still common. And experts are concerned about the Iraqi security force's ability to defend the nation against foreign threats.
Still, Panetta said earlier this week, the war "has not been in vain."
Panetta and several other U.S. diplomatic, military and defense leaders participated Thursday in a symbolic ceremony during which the flag of U.S. Forces-Iraq was officially retired, or "cased," according to Army tradition. The U.S. Forces-Iraq flag was furled -- or wrapped -- around a flagpole and covered in camouflage. It will be brought back to the United States.
"You will leave with great pride -- lasting pride," Panetta told the troops. "Secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to begin a new chapter in history."
During a stop in Afghanistan this week, Panetta described the mission as "making that country sovereign and independent and able to govern and secure itself."
That, he said, is "a tribute to everybody -- everybody who fought in that war, everybody who spilled blood in that war, everybody who was dedicated to making sure we could achieve that mission."
Iraqi citizens offered a more pessimistic assessment. "The Americans are leaving behind them a destroyed country," said Mariam Khazim of Sadr City. "The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them. Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans."
A member of the political coalition loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr saw another message in the U.S. withdrawal. "The American ceremony represents the failure of the U.S. occupation of Iraq due to the great resistance of the Iraqi people," said Sadrist lawmaker Amir al-Kinani.
Panetta echoed President Barack Obama's promise that the U.S. plans to keep a robust diplomatic presence in Iraq, foster a deep and lasting relationship with the nation and maintain a strong military force in the region.
As of Thursday, there were two U.S. bases and about 4,000 U.S. troops in Iraq -- a dramatic drop from the roughly 500 military installations and as many as 170,000 troops during the surge ordered by President George W. Bush in 2007, when violence and raging sectarianism gripped the country. All U.S. troops are slated to be out of Iraq by the end of the year, but officials are likely to meet that goal a bit before then.
The total U.S. departure is a bit earlier than initially planned, and military leaders worry that it is a bit premature for the still maturing Iraqi security forces, who face continuing struggles to develop the logistics, air operations, surveillance and intelligence sharing capabilities they will need in what has long been a difficult neighborhood.
U.S. officials were unable to reach an agreement with the Iraqis on legal issues and troop immunity that would have allowed a small training and counterterrorism force to remain. U.S. defense officials said they expect there will be no movement on that issue until sometime next year.
Still, despite Obama's earlier contention that all American troops would be home for Christmas, at least 4,000 forces will remain in Kuwait for some months. The troops will be able to help finalize the move out of Iraq, but could also be used as a quick reaction force if needed.
Obama met in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this week, vowing to remain committed to Iraq as the two countries struggle to define their new relationship. Ending the war was an early goal of the Obama administration, and Thursday's ceremony will allow the president to fulfill a crucial campaign promise during a politically opportune time. The 2012 presidential race is roiling and Republicans are in a ferocious battle to determine who will face off against Obama in the election.
Panetta acknowledged the difficulties for Iraq in the coming years, as the country tries to find its footing.
"They're going face challenges in the future," Panetta said Wednesday during a visit with troops in Afghanistan. "They'll face challenges from terrorism, they'll face challenges from those that would want to divide their country. They'll face challenges from just the test of democracy, a new democracy and trying to make it work. But the fact is, we have given them the opportunity to be able to succeed."
The ceremony at Baghdad International Airport also featured remarks from Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
Austin is leading the massive logistical challenge of shuttering hundreds of bases and combat outposts, and methodically moving more than 50,000 U.S. troops and their equipment out of Iraq over the last year -- while still conducting training, security assistance and counterterrorism battles.
The war "tested our military's strength and our ability to adapt and evolve," he said, noting the development of the new counterinsurgency doctrine.
Over the coming days, the final few thousand U.S. troops will leave Iraq in orderly caravans and tightly scheduled flights -- a marked contrast to the shock and awe that rocked the country on March 20, 2003, as the U.S. invasion began.
Saddam Hussein has been ousted, the reports of weapons of mass destruction largely laid to rest. And the future of a nascent democracy awaits.
U.S. War in Iraq Declared Officially Over
By THOM SHANKER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Published: December 15, 2011
BAGHDAD — The United States military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq on Thursday even as violence continues to plague the country and the Muslim world remains distrustful of American power.
In a fortified concrete courtyard at the airport in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thanked the more than one million American service members who have served in Iraq for “the remarkable progress” made over the past nine years but acknowledged the severe challenges that face the struggling democracy.
“Let me be clear: Iraq will be tested in the days ahead — by terrorism, and by those who would seek to divide, by economic and social issues, by the demands of democracy itself,” Mr. Panetta said. “Challenges remain, but the U.S. will be there to stand by the Iraqi people as they navigate those challenges to build a stronger and more prosperous nation.”
The muted ceremony stood in contrast to the start of the war in 2003 when an America both frightened and emboldened by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, sent columns of tanks north from Kuwait to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
As of last Friday, the war in Iraq had claimed 4,487 American lives, with another 32,226 Americans wounded in action, according to Pentagon statistics.
The tenor of the 45-minute farewell ceremony, officially called "Casing the Colors,” was likely to sound an uncertain trumpet for a war that was started to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction it did not have. It now ends without the sizable, enduring American military presence for which many military officers had hoped.
Although Thursday's ceremony marked the end of the war, the military still has two bases in Iraq and roughly 4,000 troops, including several hundred who attended the ceremony. At the height of the war in 2007, there were 505 bases and more than 170,000 troops.
According to military officials, the remaining troops are still being attacked on a daily basis, mainly by indirect fire attacks on the bases and road side bomb explosions against convoys heading south through Iraq to bases in Kuwait.
Even after the last two bases are closed and the final American combat troops withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31, under rules of an agreement with the government in Baghdad, a few hundred military personnel and Pentagon civilians will remain, working within the American Embassy as part of an Office of Security Cooperation to assist in arms sales and training.