Iraq celebrates as last US troops withdraw from country - Middle East Eye
The US removed its last troops from Iraq on Wednesday, 23 years after Washington invaded the country to topple former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power, in an intervention that cost over $1 trillion and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths over the last two decades.
"Today, the United States and our Coalition partners formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, consistent with the September 2024 US-Iraq joint statement and US national interests," the Pentagon said in a statement.
The US first occupied Iraq in 2003, following the overthrow of Hussein, before pulling out its forces in 2011. They returned at the request of the Iraqi government in 2014 to tackle the spread of the Islamic State (IS) militant group, which had seized around a third of the country.
The US began withdrawing troops from Iraq in 2025, with soldiers relocating from Ain al-Asad base in Anbar Province and the Victory Base Complex, located within the Baghdad International Airport, to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Iraqi Kurdistan was granted some semi-autonomy in 2005. For example, it has its own prime minister, president, and a separate security force, the Peshmerga.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in the statement that the withdrawal from Iraqi Kurdistan “marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship”.
Iraq has anticipated the withdrawal of US troops, with successive governments in Baghdad describing it as a matter of national sovereignty, particularly as Iraq tries to emphasise its recovery from the war with the IS.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi hailed the mission's end.
"A new phase has begun, defined by Iraq's sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, unity of decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends," Zaidi said at a ceremony on Wednesday.
He also declared that 1 October would be celebrated as "Sovereignty Day".
It is "a national occasion that affirms the completion of Iraq's path toward sovereignty and consolidates the presence of the state and its institutions", the heads of Iraq's executive, legislative and judicial branches said on Monday.
Zaidi has tried to focus on economic cooperation with the US. Middle East Eye was the first to reveal the US and Iraq's efforts to revive a historic pipeline to Syria, which was officially announced when Zaidi visited the US in July.
President Donald Trump had been pushing for the withdrawal of US troops from the country since his first administration.
Trump made ending the US’s so-called “forever wars” in the Middle East a central part of both his campaigns, although he went on to start the largest war in the Middle East in decades by attacking Iran alongside Israel on 28 February.
The conflict has raised a broader question about the US’s footprint in the Gulf, where it has longstanding security ties with wealthy, relatively stable oil-producing states like the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.
The US Department of War’s inspector general said in a report earlier this month that Iran had destroyed “hundreds of buildings and structures” at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan.
The report said it is not yet clear whether all the bases will be rebuilt or who will foot the bill. The inspector general estimated the total cost of the war for the US at around $33.4bn in total.
The US’s withdrawal from Iraq comes as Zaidi pledges to press ahead with a plan to disarm Iraq’s militias. His government initially set 30 September as the deadline for factions to disarm, but later postponed the deadline to 30 June 2027, as talks continued to "regulate" weapons outside state control.
The Popular Mobilisation Forces arose to combat IS more than a decade ago. They have since entrenched themselves in the Iraqi system, even taking salaries from the state's coffers.
The militias belong to Iran’s "Axis of Resistance". They are believed to be behind some of the drone strikes on Kuwait during the height of fighting between the US and Iran earlier this year. Saudi Arabia also blamed Iraqi militias for a strike that temporarily disabled the East-West Pipeline.
