US President Barack Obama on Friday announced that he will withdraw all US forces from Iraq by the end of the year, nearly nine years after the US invasion and after more than 4,400 US deaths. “Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.
After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said at the White House. Obama made the announcement after holding a video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the failure of talks between the two sides to agree on keeping a small number of troops in Iraq after the end of 2011. His commitment represented the fulfillment of a central promise of his 2008 election campaign, and comes as Washington seeks to also draw down the size of its garrison in Afghanistan.
