US President Barack Obama will Wednesday embrace returning troops and seek to turn the page on the divisive, bloody and costly period of modern US history stained by the Iraq war.
He will pay homage to military sacrifices and seek to move Americans towards a future unclouded by major foreign land wars and urge them to join an effort to rebuild the country’s recession-hammered economy, officials said.
Obama, who rose to power opposing the Iraq war, told a Virginia television station Tuesday he would express “incredible pride in those men and women” who gave “millions of Iraqis the chance to live in freedom.”
He will travel to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, days before the final exit of all US troops from Iraq, after a near nine-year war that killed almost 4,500 Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis and cost more than a trillion dollars.
Fort Bragg is home to units including elements of the storied 82nd Airborne Division, which had made repeated deployments to Iraq after president George W. Bush ordered a 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
“This is the core commitment that the president made to the country — that he would end this war — and the war has ended,” a senior Obama aide said Tuesday.
“You are going to see some very powerful images in the coming weeks of troops leaving. This is a very significant moment for the country.”
Obama opened several days of remembrance by hosting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at the White House on Monday and promised an “enduring” future relationship with his country.
There are fears however that Iraq, despite years of training by US forces, still lacks the capacity to defend its borders and could be unduly influenced by Washington’s foe Iran.
Some US observers also fear a return to bloody sectarianism, doubt the strength of Iraq’s political structures, and feel Maliki, a Shiite, has been entrenching himself in power to the detriment of the country’s minorities.
But the focus on Wednesday will be the end of America’s war.
“The President looks forward to thanking the troops, thanking those who served, and discussing what that sacrifice that Americans have made means now, as the Iraq war comes to an end,” said Obama spokesman Jay Carney.
“We live in a world where sometimes we travel at warp speed, in terms of our attention to events. But it wasn’t that long ago that Iraq was the most dominant issue in America.”
Obama’s visit will also have a political dimension, in North Carolina, a state which he won in his 2008 election victory and hopes to recapture on the road to a second term in 2012.
When Obama took office, more than 150,000 troops were in Iraq, but the few thousand that remain will leave this month after an effort by both sides to agree an extended US training mission failed over a dispute about legal immunity for American personnel.
But some of the euphoria that might have been expected to greet the end of such a divisive and costly war is mitigated by public exhaustion and the fact America remains embroiled in an even longer conflict, in Afghanistan.
The president will also remind Americans that they have a duty to care for badly wounded soldiers who will weigh on public finances and American medical resources for decades to come.
The administration has launched several programs to help returning soldiers when they take off their uniforms and enter the civilian work force, but unemployment for veterans of the last decade remains at 11.1 percent.
With one eye on his reelection bid at a time of economic dislocation and high unemployment, Obama will also stress that the energy America poured into fighting wars abroad must now be turned to easing woes at home.
“A lot of people wondered whether it would ever happen — whether these wars would just keep dragging on and on,” the senior official said.
“One of the points we are going to keep making, we are ending the war in Iraq and we are beginning to wind down in Afghanistan — it is more important than ever that we focus on rebuilding this country.
“We need to have our eye firmly on the ball here economically.”
Obama to honor troops to mark end of Iraq war
