Liberty Star
06-28-2009, 07:22 PM
After huge cost to US tax payers and close to 80,000 US troops seriously wounded, maimed or killed in Iraq, should Iraqis be marking US exit with a celeberation? Is some US officials' anger over this Iraqi holiday celeberation justified or misplaced?
Iraqis to mark US street exit with holiday
• 30 June troop pullout seen as return to sovereignty
• Celebratory mood angers some American officials
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 June 2009
Iraq has declared tomorrow a national holiday and is planning festivals to mark the end of the US presence on the streets of its towns and cities, more than six years after Saddam Hussein was ousted.
The much-anticipated milestone has been hailed as a return to sovereignty by Iraqi officials, who have maintained sometimes difficult relations with the US military throughout the years of occupation.
But the celebratory mood has angered some senior US officials and military commanders, who believe intensive training efforts with Iraqi forces have been forsaken, along with combat operations that have cost at least several thousand American lives since the fall of Baghdad.
The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, fuelled US anger at the weekend by describing the withdrawal as the result of Iraq's successful bid to "repulse" the invaders. "We are on the threshold of a new phase that will bolster Iraq's sovereignty. It is a message to the world that we are now able to safeguard our security and administer our own affairs," Maliki said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.
Under the new arrangements the US military will be reduced to a supporting role; it will only be able to join operations at Iraq's invitation and will no longer be able to conduct solo combat operations.
From tomorrow, 130,000 US troops will almost exclusively be confined to bases from where they will gradually leave Iraq ahead of a final departure in mid-2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/28/iraq-holiday-us-withdrawal
Iraqis to mark US street exit with holiday
• 30 June troop pullout seen as return to sovereignty
• Celebratory mood angers some American officials
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 June 2009
Iraq has declared tomorrow a national holiday and is planning festivals to mark the end of the US presence on the streets of its towns and cities, more than six years after Saddam Hussein was ousted.
The much-anticipated milestone has been hailed as a return to sovereignty by Iraqi officials, who have maintained sometimes difficult relations with the US military throughout the years of occupation.
But the celebratory mood has angered some senior US officials and military commanders, who believe intensive training efforts with Iraqi forces have been forsaken, along with combat operations that have cost at least several thousand American lives since the fall of Baghdad.
The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, fuelled US anger at the weekend by describing the withdrawal as the result of Iraq's successful bid to "repulse" the invaders. "We are on the threshold of a new phase that will bolster Iraq's sovereignty. It is a message to the world that we are now able to safeguard our security and administer our own affairs," Maliki said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.
Under the new arrangements the US military will be reduced to a supporting role; it will only be able to join operations at Iraq's invitation and will no longer be able to conduct solo combat operations.
From tomorrow, 130,000 US troops will almost exclusively be confined to bases from where they will gradually leave Iraq ahead of a final departure in mid-2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/28/iraq-holiday-us-withdrawal