Peace Out Iraq: Final US Combat Brigade Leaves Iraq...
 

Last U.S. Combat Brigade Leaves Iraq

by NPR Staff and Wires


Maya Alleruzzo/AP U.S. Army Sgt. Jason Thompson (left) and Lt. Col. Nate Flegler wave to one of the last Stryker armored vehicles to leave Iraq as it crosses the border into Kuwait at the Khabari border crossing.

August 19, 2010
The U.S. military presence in Iraq took a symbolic turn Thursday as the last full Army combat brigade left the country, ahead of President Obama's end-of-the-month deadline for ending combat operations.
Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the convoy of combat troops from the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division lumbered across the Iraq-Kuwait border before dawn, with a few hundred members staying behind to wrap up administrative and logistical duties. They will fly out of Baghdad later Thursday.


August 19, 2010



The departure doesn't mark the end of the U.S. military presence, however: About 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq through the end of next year. The troops are officially there in an advisory role, but will carry weapons to defend themselves and will join Iraqi troops on missions if requested.
"Part of our mission will be to continue to train, coordinate, advise and assist" Iraqi forces, Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Lanza said Thursday on CBS' The Early Show.
American combat operations officially end on Aug. 31, and all U.S. forces must exit Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
Marine Reserve Capt. Peter Brooks, who served two tours in Iraq from 2007-'09, told NPR that many veterans of the long and often frustrating conflict feel a "quiet pride" that their mission has been accomplished and that Iraqi forces "by and large are ready to take over the security role.
"It feels good that we left our partners and allies who were ready and capable to take over. It's nice to know too that the last Americans to leave Iraq won't be fleeing on a helicopter from the roof of the embassy," Brooks said, referring to the chaotic final days of the U.S. military presence in Vietnam.


Maya Alleruzzo/AP A column of Stryker armored vehicles carrying troops with the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division crosses the border from Iraq into Kuwait on Wednesday.


But he acknowledged that the U.S. death toll in Iraq — at least 4,415 by Pentagon count as of Wednesday — may not yet be final.
"'Combat operations' is sort of a relative term," he said. "I think some troops who remain after this date are going to see things that look kind of like combat."
An Overland Exit
When 18-year-old Spc. Luke Dill first rolled into Iraq as part of the U.S. invasion, his Humvee was so vulnerable to bombs that the troops lined its floor with flak jackets.
Now 25 and a staff sergeant after two tours of duty, he rode out of Iraq this week in a Stryker, an eight-wheeled behemoth encrusted with armor and add-ons to ward off grenades and other projectiles.
"It's something I'm going to be proud of for the rest of my life — the fact that I came in on the initial push and now I'm leaving with the last of the combat units," he said.
The 4th Stryker brigade, based in Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and named for the vehicle that delivers troops into and out of battle, lost 34 members in Iraq. It was at the forefront of many of the fiercest battles, including operations in eastern Baghdad and Diyala province, an epicenter of the insurgency, during "the surge" of 2007.
The brigade's leadership volunteered to have half of its 4,000 soldiers depart overland instead of taking the traditional flight out, a decision that allowed the unit to keep 360 Strykers in the country for an extra three weeks. The remainder of the brigade flew out with the last of the troops slated to leave later Thursday.
U.S. commanders say it was the brigade's idea to drive out, not an order from on high. The intent was to keep additional firepower handy through the "period of angst" that followed Iraq's inconclusive March 7 election, said brigade chief, Col. John Norris.
It took months of preparation to move the troops and armor across more than 300 miles of desert highway through potentially hostile territory.
"This is powerful. This is exciting for me. As a commander, this means that all of my soldiers are safely inside of Kuwait and getting ready to redeploy back to their families," Norris told The Associated Press.
Once out of Iraq, there was still work to be done. Vehicles had to be stripped of ammunition and spare tires, and eventually washed and packed for shipment home.
Political Situation 'Back To Square One'
Meanwhile, in the north, insurgents kept up a relentless campaign against the country's institutions and security forces, killing five Iraqi government employees in roadside bombings and other attacks Wednesday.
The violence — coming a day after a suicide bomber killed 61 Iraqi army recruits in central Baghdad — underscores the difficult path still ahead for Iraqis to create a functioning, stable society as the U.S. presence fades away.
Five months after national elections, squabbling political parties in Iraq are still at loggerheads over the formation of the country's next government.
The various factions held talks last week on a possible power-sharing deal, raising hopes and creating "a feeling that things are heading in the right direction," departing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill told NPR. But those hopes were quickly dashed when negotiations crumbled.
"In a lot of respects, we are back to square one," said Anthony Shadid, a Baghdad-based correspondent for The New York Times. "The landscape looks a lot like it did back in March after the election."
Shadid told NPR that "there's a very deep vein of disenchantment on the part of the public toward this paralysis, toward this deadlock and a lot of anger over what people see as collapsing services — no electricity, no water."
"We may be waiting weeks or even months before there is a government here," he said.
That uncertainty has fueled fears that the leadership vacuum leaves the country vulnerable to a renewal of sectarian violence that nearly brought it to the brink of civil war four years ago.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told MSNBC on Wednesday that he didn't think it was the end of violence in Iraq.
"We're still in a transition," he said. "At this point, as you're seeing the pictures of the last combat forces leaving Iraq — but as you said, there are 50,000 troops behind — they will still have a capability. They will still be working directly with Iraqi forces."

this is a truly blessed and happy morning for me..

so much of my life has been caught up in the anti-war movement, so much of my life changed when US invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, and when the evils of the past found there way into my own generation's experience..

While it is by no means over, and in many respects this indeed a superficial and media oriented show, truly it is a good day, as 70,000 active combat troops leaving a war zone they have terrorized for nearly eight years is a MIRACLE! The problem, there are 50,000 more

plus, experience tells us that these 50,000 will perhaps be even MORE active on patrols and forward operations in tandom with iraqi forces, and so the war is by no means over, in some respects it is barely starting up, but I take my small victories when and where i can, and it is so fucking relieving to be able to say those words out loud, "The final combat brigade left Iraq this morning" :)

there have been around 30,000 troops stationed along the Korean DMZ.

There will likely be around that many stationed at our bases in Iraq, at least until Iraq runs out of oil.

I seem to recall another police action where US troops were in-country strictly under an advisory position. advising with guns.

really, is anyone fooled by this???

maybe yr right though, suchfriends; maybe I'm just a cynical cunt and should take joy where possible. then again, maybe I'm cynical because war machines rarely ever shut-down.

it's pretty good news.

still 50K non-combat troops remain stationed but let's hope iraq can get their shit together after we rebuild what we smashed. of course you can't resurrect people but infrastructure keeps people alive--water, sewage, electricity...

anyway yeah. good news.

of course those "free" troops will now be going to afghanistan. ayayay...

its not that we are fooled.. of course the war is not by anymeans over, and of course this is all just jerry-rigging for politics and media coverage BUT regardless of all the baggage, 70,000 military forces will NOT be in Iraq, and at the least, we are changing our collective tone as a society, now we can begin to talk about ending and winding down, rather then escalating and hopeless, never-ending war.

The US fought war in Vietnam and Cambodia for a decade before they openly declared war, and for 3 years after their initial combat troop withdrawl BUT.. lets still remember to count our blessings and our victories for peace where ever we can find them.

That 70,000 troops are leaving is a sign that 70,000 more aren't coming in, and that the remaining 50,000 will have to re-evaluate the situation entirely.. fuck the war, and every SINGLE soldier that leaves Iraq rather than stays is the true hero as he extricates himself from the opportunity to have to kill and destroy another day..

I am just so ridiculously excited today, now if only we could figure out the same idea in Afghanistan...

Hopefully this is the start of us deciding we aren't going to be world police anymore. We have to many issues at home. It took me as a surprise as I've given up following world events, especially American Politics as we have the most corrupt system on the planet.

ah! americans-- ever so naive.

you're not the most corrupt by any means. trust me.

go live in haiti for a year & see for yourself.

I see you don't read the paper very often.. America is absolutely corrupt as can be, it is just less open. Everyday I read about corrupt politicians, corrupt police, corrupt businesses, corrupt schools, etc etc etc. Where is all that law and order supposedly? I haven't come across it yet.

The whole "you americans have it so good" is as destructive as ignoring the problem. Why do you want to block a bridge when an american confesses his being upset with America to you? Why can't we all work together instead of saying, "oh you americans don't really know" oh yeah? Maybe we do and your blinders can't let you see it.

Sure, the police don't stop and take bribes, but honestly, sometimes I wish I COULD just give some bitch ass rookie a bribe to get him off my ass ;)

In terms of HOW much power this corruption has I think he might be right.

I keep saying, once again agreeing with suchfriends, it's one thing if you're aware of this corruption, if it's always coming up on one way or the other because there are loopholes in how efficient it can be.

In some places, people just assume and accept this corruption because it's flawed enough to keep coming up. It just isn't organised enough.

But I guess the scarier thought it's having corruption that's so efficient people won't think it's there, except for this or that case they consider "exceptions".

hilarious ad-nominem


it's nice to buy off a cop with a couple of sandwiches when you're in trouble (i've done it), and i don't trust american cops more than cops in other countries, but to live in widespread and socially engrained corruption creates moral double standards and ethical quandaries that is hard to live with if you want to live with any kind of integrity.

americans are by far an honest and trusting people; of course there are leeches and parasites out there but this does not change that fact.

when i lived in mexico as a kid if you dropped a coin in the schoolyard another kid would step on it and "claim" it instead of letting you pick it up, much less giving it back to you. (this was not a ghetto school by the way, the kids were well off). and then--much worse--the grownups did it too! that's also a country where the police are extremely rapacious. the little things become big things.

i have never lived in russia but i read enough newspapers to know that corruption there is *massive* and of a scale that people here have never experienced in their everyday lives.

the problem with americans is that they know little of other countries and cultures and tend not to travel abroad, so if you think that the world begins in florida and ends in california of course it will appear to you that this is the center of universal corruption. IT IS NOT. there are worse places. much worse. it feels ridiculous to have to say it, but this is not the center of the universe and it is not the capital of evil and it is not to blame for everything that happens elsewhere. america is not omnipotent, omnipresent, or better at everything, including crime. it's not!

of course there are problems, crimes, corruption, abuses-- but if you're going to diagnose diseases, diagnose them correctly. THIS IS THE WORST CANCER EVER. no, it's treatable.

I really do think that's part of the problem, especially the trusting part.

But I would say, in most places I've been to, the great, great majority of people is absolutely honest. Not so much trusting but I think that could be a good thing.

Am I the only one who disagrees with the US and it's allies leaving that godforsaken place in such a hurry?

Let me get this straight. Our governments go to war thinking that it's going to be a piece of cake, but instead get bitch slapped by the invisible enemy into a stalemate and then decide to leave?
Everyone knows that the warlords (who are WAY worse than Saddam ever was) are biding their time in the mountains till the infidels pull out.
Once that happens, they will crawl back out of their holes and plunder, rape, kill and divide the country once again.

This war was all for nothing. A fucking disgrace from day one.

All I'm saying is that there's nothing to rejoice.
Not by a long shot.

Yes.

Yes? As in?
Please elaborate.

Yes, you are right. It was completely pointless, not much has improved and everybody fears what will happen now.

ah.

Ok.
This withdrawl only benefits the soldiers and their loved ones. And our governments, of course.
Can't say the same for Iraqi civilians. Their safety will soon lie in the hands of their incompetent security forces.




Now, watch me drive this ball.

dude I am serious. Just in the Times this morning I read about the Former Chief of Staff of NASA on charges for corruption, paying exorbitant contracts to friends and family businesses ( NASA's budget is often higher than that of Ethiopia) I also read about corruption ongoing in the California budget crisis, about corruption in the CALPERS, ongoing drama in Bell/Maywood (and of course Vernon, South Gate and Lynwood) and this Blagojavich trial in Chicago...

whats in the paper is just the crumbs they feed us, the tip of the iceburg I can only IMAGINE what is really going on. !@#$%! I think you accuse americans of being naive to the rest of the world, but perhaps you are also a bit naive about what goes on in America. Maybe we should all mutually trust each others opinions on the issue and hear each other out, so you can tell us about your experiences and we can tell you about ours ;)



Its not that America is the center, no not at all, but I think you are inaccurate to downplay the level, scale and severity of American corruption, simply because you might not see it as obviously as you did in other places you have been. Wander around skid row or the county jail or the PJs and you just might get a better view.. (not to say you haven't, more like a reminder)
The trouble is that if you ignore and downplay the problem, you perpetuate it, so no, with attitudes like yours this cancer is untreatable, and I think knox rightfully pointed out that the corrupt people in America (like corrupt American business men) have inadvertantly the power to really fuck things up in other corrupt countries, and thus we are all globally intertangled in this mess..

We americans would like to get our own house in order, so please, don't try disaude or discourage folks. Lets solve these problems openly and honestly..

cancer is fucking cancer my brother, and it is dangerous and deadly regardless if it is in stage A or stage D...

yes, because everyday Americans are in Iraq it instigates the haters and stokes unnecessary anomosities. Much like in Vietnam, regardless of how much we have fucked up the country, the best and first thing to do is leave, then we can clean up the mess we left behind. As long as we stay there with boots on the ground, we can't possibly clean up the mess because we just keep making it bigger, like a bull in a china shop trying to sweep up the glass, only to knock over more and more shit in the process :/

America's corruption has more impact than other countries' but it's not the most corrupt.

Forbes 2010 list of the world's 10 most corrupt nations:

Haiti
Somalia
Afghanistan
Myanmar
Sudan
Iraq
Chad
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Iran

In a way, insisting that America is even on a par with these countries is as blindly US-centric as those people who chant "Yoo-Es-Ah" at sports events.

FORBES list.
You said it.
What do you think they'd say?

They should have said top 10 most obviously corrupted nations.
They're not doing corruption right.

I mean, ok. Some of places are so fucked up calling them nations is kind of funny, as if they're in a position to actually be nations.

I guess I'm not making much sense today.

Well according to another set of criteria provided by the more liberal CBI, the top ten most corrupt countries are:

New Zealand
Denmark
Singapore
Sweden
Switzerland
finland
Netherlands
Australia
Canada
Iceland

The USA comes 19th, one place behind the UK.

Whichever way people wanna look at corruption, the US doesn't seem to rank particularly highly.

New Zealand lol.

Finland? Canada? Iceland?

that can't be right.

Switzerland I'll take.

oops, sorry. I thought that was odd. They ranked it in terms of least corrupt.

The actual top ten is:

Somalia
Afghanistan
Burma
Sudan
Iraq
Chad
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Iran
Haiti

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...-international

but how much of the corruption in Iraq, Sudan, Burma, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, Haiti are in relation to US businesses, military and foreign policies ;)

I do believe that has been knox's point.

mine is simple, america is corrupt. just because it is not the most corrupt, does not some how vindicate its existing corruption. as an american, I am upset with this, and I do believe I have the option to want to get my own house in order, especially if it happens to fuck up my already dysfunctional neighbors around the world.

I don't honestly understand what all the backlash is about, corruption and violence and poverty is the same thing regardless of degrees..

Nobody with any sense could ever argue that America isn't corrupt. Of course it is. Really corrupt, especially relative to a lot of other so-called First World countries. But while you may not have meant it to, your reply to !@#$%!'s point did seem to suggest that you considered the US to be atleast on a par with countries like Haiti. That was what I was questioning, not whether the US was corrupt or not. America is the most powerful country in the world right now, so it's inevitable that its corruption is gonna have a far greater global impact than the far more rampant corruption that exists in other parts of the world.




That's a very good point and far harder to argue against. Although I personally think that while us foreign policy is a key factor, the political infrastructures in most of those countries were installed by European colonisers and were corrupt long before America got its hand in. Not to mention the unleashing of more indigenous problems that had effectively been supressed during their time as colonies.

Without getting in the corruption debacle, great news as is. Can't wait till it's the full stroke though.

yeah, from mother to daughter, as a GIFT.

I am still fucking excited about this news, thank God!
in regards to local corruption..

In Bell and Vernon alone, approximately $10million has been issued in exorbitant salaries, vacation packages, secret and illegal personal loans, nepotistic contracts etc etc..

meanwhile 150,000 state employees must continue on unpaid furlough days (as its been since Feb 2009) taking between a 15-30% pay cut while the prisons stay full and the corrupt government contracts and spending continues unabated. We local, community workers and employees just trying to pay our bills and take care of our neighborhood services have to suffer, while corruption runs rampant.

Lets end corruption here, there and everywhere, one incident at a time.
Advocacy and awareness is the key to success..

also, lets push for more ground on this War issue, lets not get relaxed and over celebrate, there are still two active wars and dozens of secret operations going on across the world, in love we shall more than conquer them one duppy at a time ;)

Jah! Rastafari! Give thanks for life, everytime!

blagojevich is an innocent baby next to berlusconi

Another "Vietnam" for the US draws to a close.

It ain't no Vietnam...for damned sure. Especially from the soldier's perspective.

The U.S. may think they won the war by usurping Saddam Hussain from power, replacing him with a puppet government, but that was only the very start of it. The U.S. failed in their plan to turn Iraq into a democracy, and to eradicate the warring factions. They pulled out of an unwinnable situation. The same thing it's going to do in Afghanistan.

What does this have to do with Vietnam?

lol.

;)



thats a selfish perspective. the worst part of Vietnam was not the draft, it was destroying a country. In Iraq, we destroyed a country. It wasn't necessarily a good country, but regardless we destroyed it. In its own way our soldiers now are in a weirder circumstance because they are literally mercenaries, career soldiers, some volunteer, some out of circumstance, some have been brainwashed and manipulated and out-right lied to by shady commission seeking recruiters who troll highschools and colleges..

but what's fucked up about Iraq is that we fucked up Iraq, and all our money and our society contributed to this, even if inadvertently, and that same flag we make our kids pledge allegiance to was plastered up at the point of the gun across that country.. much like in Vietnam, we created a whole second society in Iraq, Iraqis who have been affiliated with the US during the War who face many insecurities in the near future, so they will probably end up like the two million "South" Vietnamese government officials and soldiers who came to the US or at least left Vietnam fleeing the "communists" (for nothing by the way, my friends' families are all in Vietnam in Saigon since the 1950s and they tell me that in all honesty the 'communists' did not bring about any of the kinds of retaliation they feared at the time..)

There are coincidentally at least two million Iraqi refugees, but unlike the Vietnamese, most of these are not in the US, they are scattered across already exasperated Middle-Eastern countries...

Fuck the War. Fuck Everything About It. the sooner it ends, so sooner we can all breathe a bit easier for a brief moment and brace ourselves for the next one.

Thank God they left.. lets keep it up.

so now what? the americans have gone. left the place in a right state, what happens now?

the super sized military bases
the city-sized embassy
They have taken the traditional imperial method of control, they control the military through its logistics & training, and as well the government is their puppet (or "arab facade" as the British put it when they were doing this in the early 20th century), but should the local proxy forces prove insufficient or unable to control the population then there is a regionally located intervention force to step in.
Even during the height of the British Empire they never had more than 10,000 soldiers in India - they controlled the place via the locals. Romans used local auxiliaries rather than sending in the Legions. And so on all through history.

its not that the americans have left anything in a right state its just that americans need to leave to cool things off.

there was a suicide bombing today, as there is often in Iraq. These bombings make the news but the news rarely elaborates the motives to them, but in reality, the vast majority of bombings and assassinations are against Iraqi police, military, government or businesses that are affiliated with the US government/military, just as was the case during the Vietnam war (which also had quite a few suicide bombings, the Arabs by no means invented that tactic).

The simply reality is that first step towards peace in Iraq and to curb the violence is for the US presence to draw down, and for US contracts to draw down, and US/Foreign involvement to draw down, as history has demonstrated that this largely solved a lot of problems for Vietnam.

The targets of violence and bombings in Iraq have largely been affiliated with the US, and to remove the US is to remove the bull's-eye..