The Iraq War Is Ending - Finally

I'm a bit surprised, but it looks like the war in Iraq is finally going to  end. President Obama has announced that the final combat troops will leave Iraq by the end of this year. On January 1st the only troops left in Iraq should be those tasked with guarding the American embassy there (numbering somewhere between 100 and 200). This is some very good news.

President Obama said, "I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over." He went on to say, "Over the next two months our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops."

That sounds great doesn't it? We accomplished our mission in Iraq and President Obama kept his promise to get us out by the end of 2011. Except that's not quite what happened. First, we accomplished very little by invading and occupying Iraq -- except to kill a lot of people and pretty much destroy that country (and waste a lot of money). Second, neither the president nor most of the members of both parties in Congress wanted to leave Iraq. We are being forced to leave because the agreement that allowed us to legally stay there expires on December 31st.

We have been trying for months to pressure Iraq into signing another agreement that would allow us to stay for an extended period of time. And for a while it looked like the Iraqi government would do that. But we made a demand they simply could not agree to -- not without starting the civil war back up. We demanded that they give all American troops immunity for any crime they might commit while in Iraq (theft, rape, murder, etc.). But the Iraqis finally grew a spine and refused to agree to that ridiculous demand. So it will end.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very glad it's finally ending (especially since we should have never invaded Iraq in the first place). I'm just not buying all the happy talk about "mission accomplished" and "promise kept". In fact, I seem to remember that the promise Obama made on the campaign trail was to end both the Iraq and Afghan wars by the end of 2011 -- and now it looks like we'll be stuck in Afghanistan for another three years (or longer).

It's good that at least one of these ridiculous wars is finally ending, but I'll save my celebrating until the United States gets all of its troops out of Afghanistan too. Until then, American troops will still be in harm's way for little or no good reason.

Courtesy of Think Progress, here are some relevant numbers regarding the Iraq War:

8 years, 260 days since Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program

8 years, 215 days since the March 20, 2003 invasion of Iraq

8 years, 175 days since President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln

4,479 U.S. military fatalities

30,182 U.S. military injuries

468 contractor fatalities

103,142 – 112,708 documented civilian deaths

2.8 million internally displaced Iraqis

$806 billion in federal funding for the Iraq War through FY2011

$3 – $5 trillion in total economic cost to the United States of the Iraq war according to economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes

$60 billion in U.S. expenditures lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001

0 weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq