Pentagon declares its Iraq mission over, twelve years after it began

US Central Command and the Office of the Secretary of Defense announced on Wednesday 30 September that the final American troops had departed Iraq, ending the mission launched in 2014 against Islamic State. AP’s Qassim Abdul-Zahra reported from Baghdad that the last personnel left from an air base in northern Iraq under the Baghdad–Washington drawdown agreement negotiated by the Biden administration in September 2024, which fixed 30 September 2026 as the terminal date and which the Trump administration continued. Roughly 2,500 US troops had been in the country in an advise-and-assist role, a figure CNN also used in January. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called it “the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region” and “a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the beginning of “a new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends.” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that the episode had been “a very expensive excursion into Hell,” adding that “it has been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place.” He claimed credit for al-Zaidi’s premiership, telling reporters the Iraqi leader “wasn’t given even a chance and I endorsed him and politicked for him a little bit, and he ended up winning in a virtual landslide.” Kataib Hezbollah security official Abu Mujahid al-Assaf said in a statement that “the expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty.”

Assessment: Hold the distinction. What is on the record is a US announcement of completion, carried uniformly by AP, Al Jazeera, CNN, NPR and PBS; no outlet has independently verified a zero-troop figure, named the departure airfield beyond “an air base in northern Iraq,” or accounted for contractors, a security cooperation office, or the air defence batteries Kurdish officials are reported to be complaining about. January’s Ain al-Asad handover was also announced in Baghdad as a “full withdrawal” — CNN noted at the time it covered only federal territory, excluding Kurdistan. A staged exit announced twice invites a third correction. The gap between “all troops withdrawn” and “no US footprint” is where it will appear.