Officials say US forces on track to complete Iraq pullout by Sept. 30
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- U.S. military is on track to pull all forces out of Iraq by September 30, with officials confirming the timeline after Iraqi PM Ali al-Zaidi met CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper in Baghdad on Wednesday.
- Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down the U.S.-led operations against ISIS, and Iraqi Kurdish officials said the drawdown of troops and equipment from Erbil began about three weeks ago.
- The U.S. presence in Iraq peaked at more than 170,000 troops during 2007 counterinsurgency operations; final combat troops left in December 2011, but forces returned in 2014 at Iraq's invitation after ISIS captured wide swaths of Iraq and Syria, with about 2,500 troops remaining for training.
- Bases in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region have regularly come under attack since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, though the U.S. declined to say how many troops remain or where they would be redeployed.
- Al-Zaidi also set a Sept. 30 deadline for non-state armed groups in Iraq to surrender their weapons, but Iran-backed militias have said they have no intention of disarming and the deadline is unlikely to be met.
- Coalition military operations against ISIS ended in 2021, with Iraqi security forces, Peshmerga, and other Kurdistan Region security forces set to lead the fight against remaining terrorists going forward.
Why it matters: The Sept. 30 deadline ends a 22-year U.S. military presence in Iraq that swelled to 170,000 troops at peak and contracted to roughly 2,500 trainers. With Iran-backed militias refusing to disarm and Kurdish bases still under attack since the Feb. 28 war on Iran, Iraq's government is simultaneously ending both the foreign troop presence and its justification for armed non-state groups — a dual deadline it is on track to meet for the coalition but widely expected to miss for the militias.
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