BREAKING: US Pulling All Troops Out Of Iraq By End Of Year

Obama making the announcement now.

This is on the schedule negotiated by George W. Bush but it had been thought that some US troops (trainers and special forces at least) would stay as part of a negotiated deal with the Iraqis. Now, that's not going to happen.

Obama is simply going to declare victory an end and be done with it.

Today the President will announce that we will fulfill our commitment and complete the drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year,” a White House official said in a statement. “This will allow us to say definitively that the Iraq war is over, and that the partnership between the US and Iraq will be a normal one between two sovereign nations.”

The failure to reach an agreement could pose security problems for the Iraqi government, still largely divided by sect and ethnicity, and for an Obama administration that inherited the war but has pledged an orderly withdrawal.

If sectarian strife or other violence should break out in Iraq once U.S. forces have left, Obama could be blamed, particularly by his conservative critics, for abandoning Iraq after nearly nine years of war before it was ready to protect itself.

Iran's pretty happy today. The Saudis? Probably not so much.

Was the sticking point the Iraqis?

posted by DrewM. at 12:51 PM

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