The United States announced the end of its military presence in Iraq after 23 years on Wednesday, ending one of the U.S.’s most controversial military adventures.
The final U.S. troops and equipment departed Erbil Air Base in the country’s northeast autonomous Kurdish region, War Department Spokesman Sean Parnell announced. He said the “orderly departure” concludes Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, the 12-year anti-ISIS mission that triggered a surge in U.S. troops to assist Baghdad after it faced collapse in the face of a supercharged jihadi insurgency, in a successful manner.
Iraqi security officers flash victory signs while riding in vehicles decorated with national flags during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
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Iraqi security officers flash victory signs while riding in vehicles decorated with national flags during a convoy celebrating the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region. It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship,” Parnell said in a statement.
He said the Pentagon would “continue to provide training and intelligence to support our Iraqi partners,” and said the U.S. would “expect” Iraqi Security Forces to “lead the continuing effort to secure Iraq and keep ISIS remnants suppressed.”
“The primary responsibility for addressing Iraq’s remaining security challenges, including ISIS remnants and Iran-aligned militias that undermine Iraqi sovereignty and regional stability, now rests with the Government of Iraq,” Parnell said.
The withdrawal came as the result of a September 2024 deal with Baghdad.
Ultimately, 3,481 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq since the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 20, 2003, according to the Defense Casualty Analysis System, with another 937 “non-hostile” U.S. deaths.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al Zaidi presided over a handover ceremony, and celebrated the development as marking the successful conclusion of the international effort combatting ISIS.
“We announce the end of the mission of the international coalition fighting ISIS, demonstrating that cooperation between friendly forces and friendly peoples has produced victory over one of the darkest chapters of extremism and brutality in history,” he said.
“The mission has concluded in victory, and the responsibility for protecting this victory falls today on all our shoulders,” al Zaidi added.
He extended his “thanks and appreciation” to the U.S. forces and other members of the international coalition, concluding the controversial U.S. presence on a positive note.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces, he said, began 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.”
The prime minister and commander in chief then shifted to the next battle to conclude his speech, turning to the fraught issue of disarming Iran-backed militias. He said there should be “no weapon outside the umbrella of the law, and no force outside the state’s institutions, in accordance with the constitution and what our wise religious authority has called for, and what our people desire.”
The U.S. withdrew without a firm resolution on militia disarmament. Iraq was saved from an ISIS takeover largely due to the mobilization of tens of thousands of Shiite fighters, but after the defeat of the caliphate, they retained their formations and became a parallel state. Al Zaidi has made disarmament a priority, but he has few avenues to accomplish this. Baghdad first set a deadline of Sept. 30 for the disarmament of all nonstate armed groups, but the date has come without much movement. The prime minister has since pushed back the deadline, telling the New York Times earlier this month that the new deadline is June 2027.
The militias haven’t been encouraging in their rhetoric. Abu Mujahid al Assaf, a security official with Kataib Hezbollah, one of the most powerful Iran-backed militias, responded to the U.S. withdrawal by celebrating and issuing a barely-veiled threat to overthrow al Zaidi.
“The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty,” he said in a statement, then warned the prime minister not to carry out any U.S. plans.
“Any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means,” al Assaf added.
The U.S.’s Kurdish allies are also in an uneasy position. The Kurdish regional government’s Peshmerga Ministry said it had come under attack from over 1,000 drones and ballistic missiles from Iran and its militias in the war, and that the U.S. withdrawal, “under these complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a matter of concern.”
By the time of the withdrawal, the U.S. presence in Iraq was a far cry from the 150,000 U.S. soldiers who poured into Iraq beginning on March 20, 2003 to topple the government of Saddam Hussein. While the initial invasion was highly successful, toppling the beleaguered government with minimal losses, the U.S. soon found itself facing a resentful populace and a spiraling sectarian civil war, pitting largely Iran-backed Shiite militias against Sunni terrorist groups and militias.
The U.S. presence in Iraq peaked in late 2007 during the Iraq War troop surge, when President George W. Bush sent more troops into the country to deal with the growing insurgency. President Barack Obama withdrew the vast majority of U.S. troops in 2011, officially ending the Iraq War but keeping hundreds of U.S. troops for security.
The situation changed once again in 2014, when ISIS took advantage of weakened central authority in Baghdad and the civil war in neighboring Syria to create its own caliphate spanning the two countries. After a series of crushing losses, the U.S. sent thousands of soldiers back into Iraq in a supporting role to assist the government. The effort was paralleled by a mobilization of Iran-backed militias, which ultimately defeated the physical caliphate in 2018.
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The U.S. retained a sizable presence both to ensure that ISIS didn’t reclaim the advantage and to keep the massive Iran-backed militias in check. The U.S. bases came under repeated attack from these militias over the years, and by the time of the full withdrawal, were viewed as an increasing liability given the vulnerability of the bases.
The impending U.S. withdrawal was known for some time, but the final departure came with noticeably little fanfare in the U.S. The departure was overshadowed by the continued war with Iran, which is locked in a stalemate. U.S. forces in Iraq had been repeatedly targeted by Iran-backed forces throughout the war.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
