President Obama surprised the White House press corps to announce that U.S. troops will leave Iraq entirely by the end of the year.
“The long war in Iraq will come to an end this year,” Obama said. “Today I can say that our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays.” Obama said that he and the Iraqi Prime Minister are “in full agreement about how to move forward,” although U.S. troops likely would have remained in the country if the Iraqi government had not refused them the immunity from prosecution that American troops typically enjoy overseas.
The presidential campaign of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., released a statement saying that the withdrawal “represents the complete failure of President Obama to secure an agreement with Iraq for our troops to remain there to preserve the peace.”
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., criticized the decision in a statement, saying that “multiple experts have testified before my committee that the Iraqis still lack important capacities in their ability to maintain their internal stability and territorial integrity.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he “feel[s] all we have worked for, fought for, and sacrificed for is very much in jeopardy by today’s announcement.”
The president left the door open to a possible defense of Iraq in the case of emergency, however, saying the United States will “insist that other nation’s respect Iraq’s sovereignty.” He added that “the United States will continue to have an interest in an Iraq that is stable, secure, and self-reliant.”
“The tide of war is receding,” Obama said, defending the success of his foreign policy as president. The drawdown in Iraq allowed us to refocus our fight against Al-Qaeda and achieve major victories against its leadership, including Osama Bin Laden.”
Obama also seemed to allude to his economic agenda and initiatives in his jobs bill. “As we welcome home our newest veterans, we will never stop working to give them and their families the care, the benefits, and the opportunities that they have earned,” Obama said, after a week of praising companies for promising to hire veterans. “This includes enlisting our veterans in the greatest challenge that we face as a nation: creating opportunity and jobs in this country.”
The president concluded his address with a promise to focus on domestic policies. “After a decade of war, the nation that we need to build, and the nation that we will build, is our own,” Obama said, before apparently adding an oblique dig at former President Bush’s foreign policy, “an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we’ve restored our leadership around the globe.”
As he left the podium, Obama ignored questions about the possibility of Iran gaining strength in the region as U.S. troops leave the country.
