Biden will announce he is pulling US troops from Iraq in Oval Office meeting with the prime minister
- President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi will announce that the U.S. military's combat mission in Iraq will end by the end of the year
- Two leaders are meeting in Oval Office on Monday
- A statement to be issued after the meeting will announce the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, a senior Biden administration official said
- The U.S. will still play a supportive role in Iraq as the part of the fight against ISIS
- 'The goal is the enduring defeat of ISIS,' the senior administration official said
President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi will announce Monday that they've come to an agreement to end the U.S. military's combat mission in Iraq by the end of the year, more than 18 years after U.S. troops were sent to the country.
The U.S. will still play a supportive role in Iraq as the part of the fight against ISIS, a senior administration official said Sunday night on a briefing call with reporters.
'As we formally end the combat mission and make clear that there are no American forces with a combat role in the country, Iraq has requested, and we very much agree, that they need continued training; support with logistics, intelligence, advisory capacity building -- all of which will continue,' the official said.
Biden and Kadhimi will meet in the Oval Office Monday afternoon for their first face-to-face talks as part of a strategic dialogue between the United States and Iraq.
A statement to be issued after the meeting will announce the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, a senior Biden administration official said.
'There is no need for any foreign combat forces on Iraqi soil,' al-Kadhimi told the AP on Sunday.
President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi will announce that the U.S. military's combat mission in Iraq will end by the end of the year
President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi will meet in the Oval Office on Tuesday
A U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003 based on charges that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was ousted from power, but such weapons were never found.
In recent years the U.S. mission was dominated by helping defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
'Nobody is going to declare mission accomplished. The goal is the enduring defeat of ISIS,' the senior administration official said.
The U.S. troop presence has stood at about 2,500 since late last year when former President Donald Trump ordered a reduction from 3,000.
The announcement to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq comes as the U.S. is in the final stages of ending its war in Afghanistan, nearly 20 years after President George W. Bush launched the war in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The U.S. mission of training and advising Iraqi forces has its most recent origins in former President Barack Obama´s decision in 2014 to send troops back to Iraq. The move was made in response to the Islamic State group´s takeover of large portions of western and northern Iraq and a collapse of Iraqi security forces that appeared to threaten Baghdad. Obama had fully withdrawn U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, eight years after the U.S. invasion.
The distinction between combat troops and those involved in training and advising can be blurry, given that the U.S. troops are under threat of attack. But it is clear that U.S. ground forces have not been on the offensive in Iraq in years, other than largely unpublicized special operations missions aimed at Islamic State group militants.
Pentagon officials for years have tried to balance what they see as a necessary military presence to support the Iraqi government´s fight against IS with domestic political sensitivities in Iraq to a foreign troop presence. A major complication for both sides is the periodic attacks on bases housing U.S. and coalition troops by Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran.
The vulnerability of U.S. troops was demonstrated most dramatically in January 2020 when Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on al-Asad air base in western Iraq. No Americans were killed, but dozens suffered traumatic brain injury from the blasts. That attack came shortly after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian military commander Qassim Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad International Airport.
The U.S. military mission since 2014 has been largely focused on training and advising Iraqi forces. In April, in a joint statement following a U.S.-Iraqi meeting in Washington, they declared, 'the mission of U.S. and coalition forces has now transitioned to one focused on training and advisory tasks, thereby allowing for the redeployment of any remaining combat forces from Iraq' at a time to be determined later.
The U.S. troop presence has stood at about 2,500 in Iraq since last year
Kadhimi is seen as friendly to the United States and has tried to check the power of Iran-aligned militias. But his government condemned a U.S. air raid against Iran-aligned fighters along its border with Syria in late June, calling it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
The U.S.-Iraqi statement is expected to detail a number of non-military agreements related to health, energy and other matters.
The United States plans to provide Iraq with 500,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine under the global COVAX vaccine-sharing program, the senior administration official said.
The United States will also provide $5.2 million to help fund a U.N. mission to monitor October elections in Iraq.
