WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump announced the final withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, formally concluding Operation Inherent Resolve and ending more than a decade of coalition military operations against the Islamic State.
The departure of the remaining personnel on Wednesday from an air base in Erbil, situated in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, satisfied a bilateral agreement between Washington and Baghdad establishing September 30 as the final date for the mission.
Trump framed the orderly drawdown as a historic victory that closes a prolonged foreign military entanglement stemming from flawed policies of previous administrations.
"It has been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place, but soon, that will be part of History," Trump wrote in an official statement on Truth Social, describing the milestone as "a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS".
The Pentagon confirmed the departure while clarifying that bilateral defence cooperation will continue through targeted intelligence sharing, advisory efforts, and standard diplomatic protection. U.S. forces originally deployed back to Iraq in 2014 at the invitation of the Iraqi government after ISIS militants seized broad swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials marked the departure as a triumph of domestic governance and sovereignty, staging celebratory security convoys across the capital. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi had previously affirmed during bilateral meetings in Washington that domestic armed forces had achieved the institutional capability required to secure Iraqi borders independently.
