The departure of U.S. forces and equipment “marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Wednesday. “The orderly departure of Coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marks the successful conclusion of the military mission that defeated ISIS in Iraq.”
TRUTH SOCIAL – “Today, I am pleased to announce, that the last American Forces are leaving Iraq! 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. This is a Great Day for America and, importantly, we leave with Iraq having a wonderful new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, somebody I supported from the beginning and fully endorsed. He won an Election that he was not expected to win, and did so, in a landslide!
Launched in 2003 under the presidency of George W. Bush, and continued under the Administration of Barack Hussein Obama in 2014, and Sleepy Joe Biden, Operation Inherent Resolve ends in 2026 under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump. This Day is a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated by the Trump Administration, First Term, along with other very bad and dangerous players.
Unlike Afghanistan, where much Military Equipment and everything else was left behind, and 13 Warriors lie dead, with many badly wounded, this orderly departure of Coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marks the end of a very expensive excursion into Hell. I set a clear mission, gave our Commanders the tools to finish it, and refused to let a temporary presence become a permanent one. I had a choice to stay or to leave, and felt, without question, that it was time for America to go home! Prime Minister al-Zaidi, is outstanding, and he will hopefully be able to handle things very well. We came to fight a caliphate. There is no longer a caliphate. We are going home!
Let’s compare this withdrawal to Afghanistan.
ok. . .
i will probably get nuked for this. . .
US DoD spends decades on bases and infrastructure in Iraq
there is a war in iran next door
lets abandon the infrastructure in iraq
but not the
EU. . . .
just an observation
and
questions
legitimate criticisms and or logical pushback welcome
im genuinely a little puzzled by the timing
all though i agree with the exit
(also > 30 years in oil and gas, international asset management, international banking,
global infrastructure.
so im no stranger to the middle east or government contracts)
the treehouse has an amazing bank of readers and commenters
i am actually sincerely seeking thoughts on this as it is somewhat unexpected in its timing
This is President Trump doing exactly what he said he would do.
Promises made, promises kept.
WINNING!
I think it is to give a counterpoint to those who attack Trump for Iran in election season.
Maybe it is a signal that the conflict in Iran is about to end?
Hope so.
The war with Iran will end the morning after the November elections. Just yesterday Iran told Americans to vote for Democrats. I am sure the Dems have promised to give Iran 10 of $billions if they just hold out that long.
Or, the ruling party will find the sky is falling on the morning after the midterms.
and nukes.
Maybe you missed the withdrawal in Germany and we’re pulling out about 10,000 troops very soon.
Wow, who will guard against the Russian tanks rolling into Berlin?
I’d say there are a couple of reasons for this. First, Iraq remains hostile to the US. The official government line may be in alignment, but the majority of the people hate our guts and want us out of there. To be fair, they also hated Saddam Hussein and everybody else, so it’s nothing personal. Still, hostility = risk.
Secondly, our business with Iran concerns the Strait of Hormuz, which is well to the south of Iraq. The sorties flown into Iranian airspace have been successfully launched from US carriers in the strait. There’s much less risk this way, compared to staging aircraft on the ground in Iraq.
All this reminds me of my Iraqi boss who voted for Obama twice in hopes he’d end our involvement in Iraq.
I think that I would hate to have Iraqi soldiers patrolling our streets. Our entire foreign policy since T Roosevelt has been based on our alleged moral superiority. Come Home and stay here!
@johnny B
valid points for sure
thank you
Maybe the EU is next? I’m not sure our presence there matters anymore especially after they wouldn’t help with Iran.
When the oil contracts were sold in Iraq, U.S. companies purchased only two quite small ones, one of which was subsequently sold on. The largest purchaser back then was China. What the situation is now, I don’t know, but it may not have changed much.
My son in law is a petroleum engineer who spends most of his time in Saudi Arabia.
You raise legitimate concerns, Chris.
I am willing to bet each one has been discussed and addressed by President Trump, Secretaries Hegseth and Rubio…and perhaps even Secretary Bessent whose finger is on the financial MOAB red button which is devastating Iran.
You’ll receive no “nukes” from me.
You’re safe 😎👍🏻
Thanks @ Betsy
and all who are responding
some good points for sure
i miss the zero hedge days where we would all talk and read each other posts
although it was certainly more wild west than treehouse. . .
I’ll say!!! The commments especially. Though I will admit I’ve picked up some darn good information and links to of attending essays or reports there. There is no place which can compare to this Tree, or the civilized and well informed people who comment 👍🏻
We don’t need to be in Iraq.
Iran will be winding down very soon.
There is a draw down planned for EU bases that has already been announced, and if I am not mistaken, should start in November of this year.
The infrastructure in Iraq doesn’t necessarily need to be abandoned as we saw with PotatoHead and Afghanistan and I’m not sure why anyone would be thinking in that direction; there could be allies interested in these installations and adjoining infrastructure – it is doubtful that these bases will be given away or left to rot.
0.o
@47fuzzy
i agree on the draw down
just thought it would be after Iran
its good either way
appreciate your posts
Appreciate your posts, too, Chris.
0.o
Said it before and will say it again, President Trump doesn’t look at staging and posturing for war. Yes, you absolutely throw/waste monies at infrastructure and boots on the ground for years. That’s not President Trump.
His Iran war has turned into anything but wasted monies staging and posturing. All the monies right now are targeted with ships, troops, munitions and planes being mobile, agile and on-call. Modern warfare is changing by the week/months etc. etc. Drones and shaping the modern battlefield with SI (Super Intelligence) and other classified battlefield management tools. There are lots of them we ain’t even privy to. Look only at the Venezuelan raid on Maduro. In and Out burger with Big Mouth in US custody in a couple of hours.
Finally, ship deployments have been ongoing for decades upon decades. Our forces are doing what they always do with some added missions in and all around Iran. Secretary Bessent is also applying his battlefield management skills from the financial smackdown of targeted Iranian leadership to all things economically associated with the Iranian government. Bottom line is the money spent in the past is money spent. Old methods are changing quickly and President Trump is showing the world how it’s done.
Think we have seen that “bases and infrastructure” within drone/missile range aren’t such a great idea.
@scott s
this is the line i was thinking for sure
like i said
the timing created questions for me
glad you posted it
I do find it interesting that no one seems to be criticizing the opening up of a massive military base in Poland while cheering for the movement of troops out of Germany / Iraq. Poland, in case anyone’s wondering, is closer to Russia than Germany.
When the Iran war is over, President Trump will close virtually every middle east base. We removed the vast majority of troops prior to Iran war, knowing they would missile and drone the bases to smitherines anyway. It gives the Iranians a “win” to settle. (They “forced” us to leave the ME.) Only neocons will be mad about leaving the ME.
I wont nuke you but the wat in Iran isn’t. It is a series of terroristic actions putting us farther away as opposed to closer is the proper military position.
sincere thanks to all who replayed
be well
do good
live free
I think it’s because the conflict with the IRGC is all but over, and will come to a resolute end.
I think President Trump is trying to send a message that we don’t want endless occupations of other countries and we don’t want to do endless wars either. That is indeed, MAGA. Its what our people have wanted for a long time.
I voted for actions such as this.
MAGA
God Bless America and President Trump.
Iraq, another war the U.S. public was lied into with manufactured consent.
Conception by deception.
They will never accept blame,ever
Politics is a verbal shell game; blame needs to be placed and enforced physically by voters onto those who seek offices of political leadership in a most stringent manner, otherwise it is what it is.
What do you mean by “another war”?
Whoever is pretending to be a young attractive White woman is part of the “Greater Israel” chorus.
Iran is the latest of man.
Hip Hip Hooray!!
God bless our people who went there.
Never forget our people who didn’t make it home
.
Was just describing my antipathy towards Dubya — his creating both the Afghanistan and Iraq tragedies is quite a resume. Will they be bring out Dubya and his well-travelled “Mission Accomplished!” banner that he keeps carefully stored in his attic to celebrate the departure?
I voted for Dubya. He was a Democrat in reality and Deep State. He was terrible in hind sight. I should go sit in a corner for being so stupid.
if you are speaking of your primary vote I understand, but don’t forget that in the general election the choice was between him or Gore and 4 years later Bush or Kerry.
You misspelled Uniparty….the ONLY party.
Democrats and Republicans are a myth…..not the voters, but their so called representatives.
Donkeys and elephants are Uniprty, Trump roars like the Lion he is.
Just remember that we never had a choice in the matter. All of our ‘elections’ were selections until Trump came along.
I voted for Bush, Sr. and Bush, Jr., to my ever-loving shame. Thank God for President Trump.
Your not alone on that, but look at the options.
Me too. I even went to a pro-Bush rally in SF and marched around with non-commie Nicaraguans shouting Viva Bush! Or maybe they were from El Salvador — whatever.
I guess he forgot his first term when he was laying blame.
your “guess”
from memory failure❓❓❓
Yep .. or from malice.
“Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.”
And when the equipment is all removed carpet bomb the runways and complex’s so Chinese or other terrorist can’t reuse any of it
Now bring home all the troops in Germany then do South Korea next! JMO
Interesting. The last time I passed through Erbil was 2 years ago and there was quite a bit of construction going on and concrete being poured. I figured we were gonna maintain a presence there for a while.
Pete Hegseth is going to be making an announcement about the military in less that 15 minutes.
Trying to find a link to someone besides agenda guy on Agenda Free TV on the youtubes.
Anyone got a link for a live broadcast?
0.o
Got it.
0.o
God Bless the Warriors that defend us and our Liberty.
Excellent presentation! 💥🇺🇸💥🇺🇸💥.
Pete did an outstanding presentation . . . wonder why it didn’t warrant a topic discussion?
0.o
What a delivery! Coming from the heart!!! My optimism just up ticked bigly. Thank you Pete Hegseth!
Thank you for posting this well worth watching presentation!
It’s time for Jackie Gleason, The Great One, to step aside.
There is no doubt about it.
President Donald J. Trump is Now the new Great One .
Thanks to God for sending this amazing man to save this country.
No. God, Himself, is saving this country.
If I take what you are saying literally God did send the right man at the right time with all the unbelievably powerful
skills to be his messenger.
I don’t believe God is going to save this country.
God gave us all the tools we need to save it ourselves.
And if we don’t ,after all the blessings HE bestowed upon this Great country we will get what we deserve .
Yes!!!
God works through his followers.
Through Trump, the vessel he chose for a time such as this, as he has and does throughout all of history.
When Johnny comes marching home again… Hoorah – Hoorah!!
Thank goodness we made Iraq safe for democracy. Given Islam democracy was always going to lead to the persecution and deaths of Christians. George Bush has all kinds of blood on his hands. It also facilitated a lot of mischief in Syria. It reflects neocon long term thinking.
Although I voted for strategically organized withdrawals of all forward bases(including Europe) with no fatalities, I question the timing with the elections around the corner and ongoing Iran conflict. Since I’m not privy to all the information our Lion President has, I continue to defer and trust his judgement to protect our soldiers, our foreign interests and our Homeland-USA!!! God Speed!
Withdrawal from Iraq precedes withdrawal from the region, (including S. Europe) which happens after the Iranian regime is no more. Set your watches accordingly, things are going to be moving in the ME very quickly, without there being the usually catalyst of an Arab-Israeli conflict.
The U.S. military is out, but Turkish forces and Iranian proxy forces are still in. Turkey ultimately wants control over Iraq’s northern oil fields. Iran wants control over Iraqi foreign policy, markets, and oil flows through Basra. Which means Iraq remains a failed state, albeit one that does not pose any direct threat to its neighbors like it did during the Saddam Hussein era.
Good! A Deep State mess mopped up by President Trump.
Should have never been there in the first place. Thank you President Trump.
Will Iran lob a bunch a missiles into Iraq tonight?
Amen!
Looks like a sideways move. Operations will be based in Jordan.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/counter-isis-iraq-withdrawal/
This reminds me: is there a reasonable alternative to Trump resigning?
He seems to even now have little idea how much (unnecessary) damage he’s created by hitching his brain to Lindsey and Zionist extremes.
The Trump of 2015-2025 would’ve rightly criticized and ridiculed this strange version of himself as stupid, wasteful, reckless, and uninterested in the health of the United States.
All of us recall that Bin Laden’s stated rationale was provoking America’s stupidity, and thereby bankrupting America. Well, we just hit $40 trillion in debt and this version of Trump has been pushing WMD nonsense with Iran, just like fools did with Iraq-Afghanistan–Syria-Libya, etc.
Note: I recently made the mistake of reading a history of Trump’s many posts about the Iran war, from February through August. Wow. The garbage is off the charts. Nobody voted for THAT guy.
Maybe a second time around would bring things back in focus?
Your garbage is off the charts.
Ron, I defended, explained Trump to people who sounded like you for many years while they were trashing him.
What is your actual thought, gripe?
You won’t get any traction with that here. He’s worshipped around these parts.
I don’t ever see Trump voluntarily resigning. That would seem out of character for him.
The fact that he got 36 upvotes just shows how many leftists have infiltrated CTH.
Amen……….
The “Leftist” remark is interesting. One of Sundance’s wise maxims concerns “pretending not to know things,” which surely applies here.
When Trump was acting like himself for 10 years, and regularly (properly) criticizing the long string of military boondoggles, he was called a lot of silly names by the old suspects of wasteful warmongering that damaged the nation.
Since then, Trump flipped, rejected his own principles and rejected most who supported him for nearly 10 years, and has sought the approval of the old wasteful warmongering crowd, while selling the same kind of insulting nonsense that Bush-Cheney sold nearly 25 years ago. Sad stuff.
Meanwhile, Democrats are amazed by their political good fortune; Bin Laden is smiling from the grave; our country is declining in a way unimaginable 12 months ago; and the old warmongering “conservatives” are happy.
Let’s face reality? The MAGA movement, and the country, is being dragged down by yet another regime change mess.
If there’s a course that’s better than pressuring Trump to resign and hand the keys to Vance, what is it? Even more unnecessary war and waste?
Check out the traction. It’s another reliable sign of how bad things are.
In my own experience, a huge percentage of Trump’s coalition gave him chances to wake up but then lost hope by August.
Trump’s sudden morphing into a Lindsey-Levin personality was a sad disaster in all respects, including domestic politics.
According to the Terrorists in Iran the USA is the Big Satan and Israel is the little Satan. … Iranian terrorists have killed people around the world for almost 50 years. … President Trump prevented Iran from building an atomic bomb and used the US Air Force to bomb the uranium enrichment facility. … President Trump is actually working to eliminate the current government in Iran that threatens >everyone.
*********
Please review this article at TheConservativeTreehouse. = >A Pragmatic Perspective on the Iran Conflict< April 12, 2026 | Sundance
“Islamic extremists, religious zealots, fanatics, cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. Even those who are sympathetic to the Iranian regime, particularly Turkey and Qatar, are pragmatic about this issue.
Nuclear weapons must never fall into the hands of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Nusra, and all of the extreme -perhaps most authentic- factions of Islam are included in that outlook.”
“On the issue of Iran never having nuclear weapons, it has been the stated policy of every U.S. administration for 40+ years, and on that issue the entire Middle East is in agreement.”
GGHD, I was extremely patient with so-called “conservatives” who foolishly supported the horrific disaster of the propaganda campaign to invade Iraq, only because I thought they might have psycho-emotional problems from 9-11. (Which occurred only because of unnecessary American provocation.)
Roughly 25 years later, after so much truly incredible waste, death, fraud that that and similar disasters, there seem to be two problem camps: (1) decent folks who still (!?!) haven’t learned about those who manipulate them: and (2) the manipulators.
I followed every bit of this phenomenon of tragic manipulation for 25 years, including Iran, which is why I loudly supported Trump, with risk to myself.
There was / is no great new threat. Trump, due to senility and / or threats to his family, folded and became that which he’d despised.
This gets 52 upvotes here?
Todd W, do you support the (1) Trump of 2015-2025 or (2) the very different and new version?
Pick one. Can’t pick both; the differences are severe, immense.
Great the operations in Syria were finally shut down.
There is an interesting contrast here and it’s not vs the Afghanistan Bug Out.
It is that the withdrawal actually occurred, unlike the first time the President’s orders were flat ignored by the then DoD and even State Department
The message behind that contrast is that the President does has gained a measurable amount of control over the DoW … thanks to all the weeding out of Obama and Auto-Pen Leadership nested inside DoW.
Being hit by Iranian rockets probably sped up the decision.
Immediately before the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the average US pump price for regular gas was about $1.73 per gallon…and that was the inflated price with rumors of the impending war. was $1.40 in January 2003.
All that misery for nothing
Announce the withdrawal from the other countries around the world as well
My County school system could use a couple few million, alas, getting rid of the woke 20% of top military will have to do for now
Are the Vindman brothers still in uniform? Disgusting