The Last American Troops Leave Iraq After Twelve Years
United States forces withdraw from their remaining bases today, ending a coalition mission launched twelve years ago and twenty-three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Some 4,500 Americans died across two decades of war. Baghdad will mark four separate Sovereignty Days. The deadline to disarm Iran-aligned militias has slipped from today to June 2027.
Both sides are claiming the same departure. The Iraqi prime minister Ali al-Zaidi frames it as maturity, telling the United Nations his government is “striving to ensure that the state is the ultimate decision-maker in matters of peace and war, and that weapons and tools of power remain in the hands of its constitutional institutions”, and that the relationship moves “from military cooperation to economic and development cooperation”. A commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq calls it something else entirely: “a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups… and a crushing defeat for the American project”. Both Washington and the militias have reportedly promised ninety days without attacks. Iraqi security officials say a suspected Islamic State cell was preparing suicide attacks timed to the pullout. Watch the ninety days.