WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced Friday
that he is bringing all U.S. troops home from Iraq at year’s end,
closing out a war that has lasted almost nine years and killed nearly
4,500 Americans.
The announcement of a complete
withdrawal came after the White House and the Iraqi government failed to
reach an agreement that would have left some U.S. forces in Iraq to
provide security and function as trainers.
The
White House said that all of the approximately 40,000 troops now serving
in Iraq will come home by the end of 2011. Only a “normal embassy
presence” will remain, a White House official said.
“Today
I can say our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays,”
Obama said in an appearance in the news briefing room.
Earlier
in the day, Obama took part in a secure video conference with Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in which the two leaders discussed the
pullout.
“During their conversation, Obama and
Maliki strongly agreed that this is the best way forward for both
countries,” another White House official said.
The
end of the U.S. military’s role fulfills a promise Obama made on the
campaign trail in 2008, when he argued that the Iraq war diverted scarce
resources from the fight against terrorism at a high cost to taxpayers.
The war helped distinguish then-Sen. Obama from his main opponent in
the Democratic primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As
a senator, Clinton had voted to authorize the war. Obama, for his part,
delivered a speech opposing the U.S. invasion when he was running for a
U.S. Senate seat in Illinois.
Obama made the
withdrawal announcement one day after the killing of longtime Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi, a development that some experts say vindicated
his strategy for assisting rebel forces. The two conflicts underscore
the difference in how Obama and his immediate predecessor wage war.
Where
George W. Bush deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with a massive
deployment of U.S. forces, Obama opted for different tactics in Libya,
relying on an international coalition, intelligence and airstrikes to
help force Gadhafi from power.
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