US formally ends Iraq war with little fanfare

US formally ends Iraq war with little fanfare
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press – 1 day ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — There was no "Mission Accomplished" banner. No victory parade down the center of this capital scarred by nearly nine years of war. No crowds of cheering Iraqis grateful for liberation from Saddam Hussein.

It took the U.S. military just 45 minutes Thursday to declare an end to its war in Iraq with a businesslike closing ceremony behind concrete blast walls in a fortified compound at Baghdad International Airport. The flag used by U.S. forces in Iraq was lowered and boxed up. On the chairs — nearly empty of Iraqis — were tags that listed not only the name of the assigned VIP, but the bunker to rush to in case of an attack.

With that, and brief words from top U.S. officials who flew in under tight security, the U.S. drew the curtain on a war that killed 4,487 Americans, by the Pentagon's count, and more than 100,000 Iraqis.

The conflict also left another 32,000 Americans and far more Iraqis wounded, drained more than $800 billion from the U.S. treasury and diverted resources from Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaida rebounded after their defeat in the 2001 invasion.

"To be sure the cost was high — in blood and treasure of the United States and also the Iraqi people," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the roughly 200 troops and others in attendance. "Those lives have not been lost in vain. They gave birth to an independent, free and sovereign Iraq."

Many Iraqis, who saw their country devastated through years of fighting, disputed that.

"With this withdrawal, the Americans are leaving behind a destroyed country," said Mariam Khazim, a member of the Shiite Muslim sect that has dominated politics since the end of Saddam's Sunni-led regime.

"The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them," said Khazim, whose father was killed when a mortar shell struck his home in Sadr City. "Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans. The Americans did not leave a free people and country behind them. In fact, they left a ruined country and a divided nation."

The low-key ceremony stood in sharp contrast to the start of the war, which began before dawn on March 20, 2003, with a "shock and awe" airstrike in southern Baghdad where Saddam was believed to be hiding. U.S. and allied ground forces then stormed across the featureless Kuwaiti desert, accompanied by reporters, photographers and television crews embedded with the troops.

Now, the final few thousand U.S. troops will head out in orderly caravans and tightly scheduled flights, leaving behind a nation free of Saddam's tyranny but fractured by violence and fearful of the future. Bombings and gun battles still occur almost daily. Experts are concerned about the Iraqi security forces' ability to defend the nation against foreign threats.

U.S.-Iraqi ties are no doubt closer than they were during much of Saddam's rule but are still short of what Washington once envisioned. Iranian influence is on the rise. One of the few positive developments from the American viewpoint — a democratic toehold — is far from secure.

"You will leave with great pride — lasting pride," Panetta told the troops seated in front of a small domed building in the airport complex. "Secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to begin a new chapter in history."

Many Iraqis, however, are uncertain how that chapter will unfold. Their relief at the end of Saddam, who was hanged on Dec. 30, 2006, was tempered by a long and vicious war that was launched to find nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and plunged the nation into a bloodbath between rival Muslim sects.

An insurgency that rose up within months of the April 2003 fall of Baghdad scuttled reconstruction plans and forced the Americans to keep up to 170,000 troops in Iraq years after Saddam was captured.

Iraq nowadays is far quieter than at the height of the war, but with an uneasy peace achieved through intimidation and bloodshed. The number of Iraqi neighborhoods in which members of the two Muslim sects live side by side and intermarry has dwindled.

The forced segregation, fueled by extremists from both communities, has fundamentally changed the character of the country. And it raises questions about whether the Iraqis can heal the wounds of the sectarian massacres after the Americans leave.

Some Baghdad neighborhoods, such as Hurriyah, are still guarded by thick blast walls and security checkpoints. Widespread corruption, bureaucratic hurdles and electricity shortages continue to stifle Iraq's economy.

It was hard to find an Iraqi on Thursday who did not celebrate the exit of what they called American occupiers, neither invited nor welcome in a proud country whose capital, Baghdad, was once among the world's great centers of culture and learning.

Some said that while grateful for U.S. help ousting Saddam, the war went on too long. A majority of Americans would agree, according to opinion polls, though many initially supported the war as a just extension of the fight against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks.

One of the many ironies of the war is that Saddam had not tolerated al-Qaida, which planned and carried out the attacks. With Saddam gone and the country in chaos, al-Qaida in Iraq became the terror movement's largest and most dangerous franchise, attracting fighters from North Africa to Asia for a war that lingers on through suicide bombings and assassinations, albeit at a lower intensity.

The ceremony at Baghdad's airport also featured remarks from Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who served two tours in Iraq, and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Austin led the massive logistical challenge of shuttering hundreds of bases and combat outposts, and methodically moving more than 50,000 U.S. troops and their equipment out of Iraq over the last year — while still conducting training, security assistance and counterterrorism battles.

As of Thursday, there were two U.S. bases and about 4,000 U.S. troops in Iraq — a dramatic drop from the roughly 500 military installations during the surge ordered by President George W. Bush in 2007. All U.S. troops are slated to be out by the end of the year.

President Barack Obama had no comment on Thursday's ceremony but told soldiers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina this week that the "war in Iraq will soon belong to history, and your service belongs to the ages."

Despite Obama's earlier contention that all American troops would be home for Christmas, at least 4,000 forces will remain in Kuwait for some months. The troops could be used as a quick reaction force if needed.

The U.S. will leave behind thousands of diplomats and security contractors.

"We will have to be working closely with the Iraqis to ensure the security of our civilians," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

Still, the disappearance of uniformed troops marked a defining moment in Iraq's history.

"It is a great achievement for the Iraqi people," said Hayder al-Abadi, a Shiite lawmaker in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition. "Iraqi politicians have made their way and have made the independence and sovereignty a reality here. The Americans have committed a lot of mistakes in Iraq and they failed to protect the country."

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

BREAKING NEWS: President Obama Declares War in Iraq to Be Over

Obama ends Iraq combat effort: Time to turn page
By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent
2 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is telling the nation in a prime-time Oval Office address that the U.S. is officially ending its combat role in Iraq, a final turning point in one of the country's longest wars.

He said Tuesday night, in his words, "I am mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home" and that "it is time to turn the page."

Obama said he called former President George W. Bush, who began the war with the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Obama, an anti-war activist, said that he and Bush had disagreed about the war but there was no doubt about Bush's support for U.S. troops, his love of country or commitment to America's security.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Opposed to the war from the start, President Barack Obama on Tuesday formally ended the U.S. combat role in Iraq as promised, declaring: "It is time to turn the page." He said the nation's most urgent priority must be fixing its own economy.

In advance excerpts of his prime-time speech to the nation, Obama said the United States "has paid a huge price" to give Iraqis the chance to shape their future. That toll has included more than 4,400 dead, tens of thousands of troops wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars spent since March 2003.

"Ending this war is not only in Iraq's interest — it is in our own," Obama said.

Yet for all the finality, the war is not over, and the American sacrifice will continue.

Obama is keeping up to 50,000 troops in Iraq for support and counterterrorism training, and the last forces are not due to leave until the end of 2011 at the latest. Still, he sought to mark Aug. 31, 2010, as a milestone in one of the defining chapters in recent American history.

In a telling sign of the domestic troubles weighing on the U.S., Obama reserved part of his war address to campaign for his efforts to revitalize the economy.

On a night focused on his role as commander in chief, he said his "central responsibility as president" was to get people back to work.

The ending of the combat mission on this date had been known for 18 months. Given the stakes, the toll in American lives and dollars and the long consuming debate, Obama sought to explain it to the country.

"Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country," Obama said. He made sure to remind the nation that he had promised to meet this goal and shrink U.S. involvement by now, "and that is what we have done."

Obama's rise to the presidency was built in part on his fierce opposition to the war, an American-led endeavor that lost public support as it rolled on and American casualties rose. Obama has long held that the war inflamed anti-American sentiments abroad and stole resources from the fight in Afghanistan.

In a defense of his foreign policy, Obama said capping the combat mission in Iraq would send a message to the world that the U.S. "intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership."

Obama sought to close a divisive chapter without declaring victory.

His opposition to the war presented him with a tricky moment — standing firm in his position without disparaging the sacrifice and courage of those who fought.

On Tuesday he was intent on assuring the nation and the stretched military that all the work and bloodshed in Iraq was not in vain, declaring that because of it "America is more secure."

Though the U.S. commitment in Iraq is winding down, Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan, the home base of the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorists, where Americans have been fighting for nearly nine years.

"It is going to be a tough slog," Obama said of Afghanistan in remarks earlier Tuesday to soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said success in Afghanistan was possible but "is not inevitable."

Tuesday night, the president's speech was never intended to be celebratory.

"It's not going to be a victory lap," Obama said at Fort Bliss, a post that has lost 51 soldiers in the Iraq war. "It's not going to be self-congratulatory. There's still a lot of work that we've got to do to make sure that Iraq is an effective partner with us."

In fact, Iraq is in political turmoil, its leaders unable to form a new government long after March elections that left no clear winner. In Baghdad on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden pressed Iraqi leaders anew to break the impasse. The uncertainty has left an opening for insurgents to pound Iraqi security forces, hardly the conditions the U.S. envisioned for this transition deadline, which Obama announced 18 months ago.

Since the war began, more than 4,400 U.S. troops have been killed and almost 32,000 have been wounded. The war is one of the longest in the nation's history, even as the one in Afghanistan continues.

Obama's big day was defined by what it was — a turning point, a promise kept — and by what it was not.

It is not the end of the war. More U.S. troops are likely to die.

All U.S. troops are not expected to leave Iraq until the end of 2011, a final agreement that was secured before Obama took office.

Obama has accelerated the end of the U.S. role in Iraq by pulling home nearly 100,000 troops.

The American public has largely moved on. The prevailing worry now is joblessness at home.

Almost forgotten are the intense passions and protests that defined the Iraq debate through much of the past decade. Or that lawmakers of both parties authorized President George W. Bush to go to war.

What emerged was not just a war but a Bush doctrine of pre-emptive force against perceived threats, one that reshaped how the world viewed the United States. In Iraq, the intelligence that made the case for war was faulty; no weapons of mass destruction were ever found.

Saddam Hussein was toppled, and Iraqis now live in greater freedom, but those were not the rationales for war. The aim was, as Bush put it in his own Oval Office address in 2003, "to defend the world from grave danger."

The national focus has turned to Afghanistan and to the staggering economy in the U.S. In particular, weeks ahead of a vital congressional election in the U.S., Obama wants Americans to see a linkage between getting out of Iraq and investing more money at home.

A major thrust of Obama's speech was to honor the service of U.S. troops and civilian workers in Iraq. Another was to assure Iraqis that the United States is not abandoning them.

And yet another mission was to remind the country, in Obama's view, about where the true threats to national security lie, including in Afghanistan.

Just 38 percent of people support the war in Afghanistan, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, and only 19 percent think things will get better in the next year. On Iraq, unsurprisingly, Obama finds more support in pulling troops home: 68 percent approve of his ending the formal combat mission.

The cost has been financial, too. Congress has allotted more than $1 trillion for both wars.

The Iraq war linked Obama and Bush before the Democrat won the White House, and has ever since.

Fittingly, Obama called Bush on Tuesday to talk about this moment in the war. It is more than seven years after the former president declared that major combat operations were over.

The White House said the call was private and would not say more.

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