Final US Troops Leave Iraq After 23 Years of War

The last American military mission in Iraq ends this week. By Wednesday, the final US troops leave Iraq under an agreement struck two years ago between Baghdad and Washington, closing a chapter that started with the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Reuters reported Tuesday that US personnel were preparing to depart their remaining bases, while Iraq's government confirmed the timetable is holding.

The human cost behind that chapter is grim. Forty-five hundred Americans died across more than two decades of war in Iraq. The full span of US involvement stretches to twenty-three years, with a nearly three-year gap in the middle before American forces returned to fight the Islamic State. The mission that ends this week, as US troops leave Iraq for the last time, is the smaller counterterrorism operation that grew out of that fight. Still, once US troops leave Iraq, it will be the first time in over a decade that no foreign military mission is operating on Iraqi soil.

The deal that ends it

Washington and Baghdad announced the wind-down plan two years ago: a two-phase drawdown that would formally close the coalition's military mission in Iraq. The first phase was supposed to finish last September but ran into January of this year, when American forces completed their withdrawal from Ain al-Asad airbase in western Anbar province and the Iraqi army took control of the site, according to reports from Iraqi state media. Phase two runs through the end of this month, and once US troops leave Iraq, the coalition's military mission in the country formally closes.

Iraq's commander-in-chief spokesperson, Sabah al-Nauman, said Monday that American and coalition forces would finish withdrawing on the agreed schedule and that no foreign military bases would remain, the American Quorum reported. He added that Iraqi forces control the country's territory and that future cooperation would shift to bilateral partnerships rather than a coalition military footprint once US troops leave Iraq.

American forces already left several major bases elsewhere in the country last year, leaving the area around Erbil in the Kurdistan Region as the principal location of the remaining presence. Hundreds of troops are still there, and the final US troops leave Iraq from those northern positions. A US military official said most of the remaining personnel are expected to be redeployed to Jordan and other locations in the Middle East rather than return to the United States, according to the Defender. Air-defense systems and other heavy equipment are being pulled out alongside them.

Iran sees an opening

Not everyone in Iraq is treating the departure as a neutral handover. As US troops leave Iraq, Iran and its allies, who now hold deep influence across Iraqi politics and security, are openly celebrating it. Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, told Reuters the withdrawal was "a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project." In the same interview, he said: "On September 30, we will celebrate the turning of a black page in Iraq's history and the failure of the occupation to impose its will on our country."

Iraqi security analysts say Tehran is positioned to gain the most. "Iran stands to benefit strategically from the coalition's departure because it removes a military presence that for years acted as a counterweight to Tehran's influence in Iraq," said Jasim al-Bahadli, an Iraqi security analyst who studies armed Shi'ite groups aligned with Iran, in comments to Reuters. He predicted the pro-Iranian militia groups would not only frame the departure as their victory but also try to convert that momentum into greater sway over Iraqi security and political decision-making. The analysts also warned that other US enemies could attempt a comeback, including the Islamic State, which the coalition was originally formed to fight.

The timing lands during one of the most volatile stretches of US-Iran relations in years. Washington is carrying out the withdrawal even as it escalates pressure on Tehran. Earlier coverage on this site detailed Trump's ultimatum to Iran's leadership (Trump UNGA Iran Threat: Annihilate Iran or Make a Deal) and the reported strikes inside Iran (Mojtaba Khamenei Survived a Second Strike, Cleric Claims). For younger Iraqis, watching US troops leave Iraq is not an abstract geopolitical shift. It is the defining war of their childhood reaching a deadline.

What Baghdad says happens next

The Iraqi government is projecting confidence. "Our security situation has improved and is good. We control all Iraqi territory, and there is no concern over the country's security," said Abdul Amir al-Shammari, director of the office of Iraq's armed forces commander-in-chief, in remarks carried by the state-run Iraqi News Agency and reported by the Cosmos Chronicle. Iraqi officials have described September 30 as a fixed and final date for ending the coalition's military mission, framing the transition as the start of a new phase of bilateral security cooperation between Baghdad and the coalition countries.

Behind the confident statements, officials are still sorting out what that cooperation looks like. In late August, the prime minister ordered the formation of a committee to determine the shape of Iraq's relationship with coalition countries after the deadline, according to the same Cosmos Chronicle report. That suggests the handover is real but incomplete: the bases are being emptied on schedule, even as the day US troops leave Iraq approaches with the long-term security arrangement still being negotiated.

For ordinary Iraqis, the withdrawal is broadly popular, and few people in Baghdad or Falluja have warm feelings about two decades of foreign military presence. But those who worry about the strength of the Iran-backed groups fear the exit is premature. When the last US troops leave Iraq on Wednesday, the gamble Baghdad is taking becomes public: its own forces can hold a country that has not known full sovereignty for a generation, or they cannot.

Gen Z Iraqis, many of whom were toddlers when the invasion began, are watching a war end that has defined their entire lives. Whatever the September 30 deadline delivers, whether a quieter country or a louder power struggle, it will shape the region they inherit. Reuters and the American Quorum are tracking the final movements this week, and the Defender has detail on where the redeployed troops are headed.