The US military announced Wednesday that it completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the ISIS group and prompting President Donald Trump to hail the conclusion of "a very expensive excursion into Hell.”
The last US troops left an air base in northern Iraq under a deal between Baghdad and Washington.
Trump, in a social media post, described the withdrawal by a Sept. 30 deadline as “orderly." Appearing soon after at a White House event celebrating Hispanics, he spoke at length about the withdrawal and said, “It’s been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place. It was a quagmire. For many, many years it lasted. But soon that part of history will be over.”
He said the shift was a victory for the US, Iraq and a sign of victory over the ISIS group.
The withdrawal, agreed on two years ago, comes against the backdrop of the ongoing war between the United States and Iran that has also sometimes spilled over into Iraq, with Iran-backed factions firing on US troops and the US striking the groups' strongholds.
Trump’s comments came as his own decision earlier this year to launch the war with Iran has been compared to the Iraq war for its undefined mission as it nears its seventh month.
Appearing at the White House, Trump made that comparison, arguing both that his one-day military action in Venezuela earlier this year to capture now former President Nicolás Maduro and the Iran war compared favorably, taking far less time and with fewer deaths of US troops.
In recent years, Washington has sought to shift its focus from the Middle East toward Asia, but that shift has been inconsistent, with the Pentagon alternating between reducing its Middle East presence and then finding itself engaging in new conflicts, including the ongoing war in Iran.
Baghdad touted the end of the US mission as a sign of the country's increasing strength and sovereignty.
The withdrawal was also celebrated by Iran-backed groups but raised concerns among some other Iraqis, particularly in the Kurdish region, where many fear a resurgence of the ISIS group, as well as more attacks by Iran-linked groups, possibly emboldened by the departure of US forces.
Meanwhile, questions loom around the future of the Iraqi armed factions, which the Baghdad government has sought to disarm, with little success so far.
A new phase in Iraq after decades of US involvement
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that US troops and equipment had completed an “orderly departure” from the air base in Irbil, in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” he said. “It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”
He added that the US military “will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the US withdrawal as the beginning of a “new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends.”
He said Iraqi security forces will continue the fight against ISIS and the government will ensure that non-state groups no longer hold weapons.
Trump in his remarks on Wednesday lavished praise on al-Zaidi, calling him “outstanding,” a “fantastic guy, friend of mine,” and someone who “will hopefully be able to handle things very well.”
He also appeared to try to take credit for al-Zaidi's leadership, saying that the Iraqi leader was “running for election” and “wasn’t given even a chance and I endorsed him and politicked for him a little bit, and he ended up winning in a virtual landslide.”
Al-Zaidi was not on the ballot but was selected as prime minister when Iraq’s dominant parliamentary bloc nominated him after weeks of internal debate among its member parties and Trump publicly announcing his opposition to the coalition's previous choice.
US troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. They departed in 2011, but three years later, Iraqi authorities invited a smaller US-led mission to fight ISIS, which had rampaged across Iraq and Syria, seizing large swaths of territory.
With the extremist group reduced to scattered sleeper cells, Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind the mission down.
US troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a small presence of hundreds of troops in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the US and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi factions also have coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi militants to attack Saudi Arabia.
The future of factions remains unclear
The Iraqi government initially linked the Sept. 30 deadline for US withdrawal to the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that date.
While a handful of less-influential factions have agreed to turn over their weapons, powerful groups close to Iran rejected the prospect or set conditions for disarming that the government would be unlikely to meet.
Al-Zaidi has since walked back the deadline. He told The New York Times earlier this month that the deadline for faction disarmament has been pushed to June 2027.
The effects of the US withdrawal may not be immediately visible, particularly since the US military presence had already been scaled down. But officials in Iraq's Kurdish region have expressed anxiety about the departure and particularly about the removal of US air defense systems.
The Kurdish regional government's Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent US-Iran conflict.
“The departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region under these complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a matter of concern,” the statement said.
Iran-allied groups in Iraq, meanwhile, have celebrated the US withdrawal.
“The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty,” Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah, said in a statement.
He added a warning to al-Zaidi and his government not to carry out American plans, threatening that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”
Kataib Hezbollah leader Ahmad al-Hamidawi took a somewhat more conciliatory tone, calling on the group's fighters to halt their military activities “with the exception of targeting hostile aircraft violating the country’s airspace.”
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, said in a statement that negotiations with the government over the regulation of weapons have not resulted in an agreement and that it was “not bound by any timeline or agreement” announced by the government or political entity. The group said it is open to “any dialogue that guarantees Iraq’s sovereignty and dignity.”
