In a speech to a group of veterans earlier this month, President Obama reiterated his plans to bring troops home from Iraq. "I made it clear that by Aug. 31, 2010, America's combat mission in Iraq would end," he said. "And that is exactly what we are doing ' as promised, on schedule." Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Is this declaration really that different than George Bush's now-infamous and often parodied pronouncement in May, 2003 aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended?" The departure of the Army's 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., marks the official end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the State Department, told MSNBC. Yes, the last U.S. combat troops were crossing the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, 7½-years after the start of a war that overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis and civilians dead.
But a so-called "transitional force" made up of about 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in the country to support the Iraqi government. In other words, we're leaving ' but 50,000 troops are staying behind to continue to do much of what Iraq can't seem to do itself. Still sounds like a lot of American men and women will be in harm's way in a country that in no way is secure politically and is still of course a threat to any and all American troops who will stay there. Those troops who be staying in Iraq indefinitely will include Camp Pendleton troops as well others who will leave Iraq and head for Afghanistan.
From the frying pan to the fire.
Some experts say we'll have a substantial presence in Iraq for another decade given the nature of the war on terror. This isn't a war with a beginning, middle or end. The real question of course is whether Iraq can get its own government in working order.
Meanwhile, despite the Obama Administration's insistence that American's combat mission in Iraq really is over, I can't help but feel that this is a stealth pullout. As the Orlando Sentinel asked in an op-ed piece, 'Where are the troops? Where are the celebrations of the homecomings of the withdrawn 70,000 men and women? Are they coming home or simply being sent to Afghanistan? Patriotic homecoming events in cities across the nation would prove to the American people that the Iraq War is over; moving troops from one internal war in Iraq to another one in Afghanistan will just make them angry.'
