Trump Cites 4,500 US Deaths as Iraq Withdrawal Nears End

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the last American forces are leaving Iraq, calling it "a great day for America" and saying the coalition operation has ended with an orderly departure from Erbil Air Base.

Trump made the remarks on Wednesday at a Hispanic Heritage celebration at the White House, where he also made an announcement with the Secretary of Commerce.

"I'm pleased to announce that the last American forces are leaving Iraq," Trump said. "It's been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place, and it was a quagmire. It lasted many, many years. But soon that part of history will be over."

Trump said the United States is leaving as Iraq is led by a new prime minister. "This is a great day for America, and importantly, we leave with Iraq having a wonderful new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, a fantastic guy, a friend of mine, and somebody I supported from the very beginning and fully endorsed," he said.

He said Zaidi was not expected to win. "He was running for election, he wasn't given even a chance, and I endorsed him. I politic formed for him a little bit, and he ended up winning in a virtual landslide, beating somebody that was not a good person in my opinion," Trump said. "I'm very proud of him, and hopefully he's going to do a fantastic job."

Trump added that the result was unexpected. "He won the election, and it was very unexpected. It was a very big thing, and he did so in landslide order," he said.

Trump traced the operation's history across successive US administrations. "Launched in 2003 under the presidency of George W. Bush, and continued under the administration of Barack Hussein Obama, have you heard of him, in 2014, and then further continued under Sleepy Joe Biden, Operation Inherent Resolve, which is what they called it, ends in 2026 under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump," he said. "We're getting the hell out of there."

He described the moment as a victory on several fronts: "This day is a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated, which is the reason we went in there in the first place. I decimated them and took them out in my first administration."

Trump said he did not know why the announcement had taken so long. "It was all about ISIS at the time. It should have never been allowed to form. It did form, we took it out, others weren't able to do so," he said.

Trump contrasted the departure with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. "Unlike Afghanistan, where much military equipment and everything else was left behind, and 13 warriors lie dead, I know the families of those incredible young people. I got to know them very well over the last couple of years," he said. "What happened to their children should never have been allowed to happen."

He also spoke of the wounded. "With many badly wounded, so many badly. Forty-eight were so badly wounded, they never get mentioned. I mention them all the time," Trump said. "Badly wounded, no legs in some cases, arms, face."

The president said the exit from Iraq was different. "This orderly departure of coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marks the end of a very expensive excursion into hell. And again, we took all of our equipment," he said. "I said take a little longer, take every one. We left all of the equipment, if you remember, in Afghanistan. Everything was left behind. This time, I said I want every screw taken. If there's a screw lying on the ground, take it. If we have a canvas tent, take it. We took everything."

Trump cited figures for the US presence in Iraq. "We have been in that war for 23 years, lost more than 4,500 great American soldiers, and had over 31,000 injured, some very badly, plus hundreds of civilian contractors were killed," he said. "So, think of that: 23 years, 4,500 dead soldiers, 31,000 badly injured, and that doesn't include contractors, many of whom were killed."

"I set a clear mission, gave our commanders the tools to finish it, and refused to let a temporary presence become a permanent one," Trump said. "A lot of people wanted us to be permanently there. I had a choice to stay or to leave and felt, without question, that it was time for America to go home."

Returning to the prime minister, he said: "Prime Minister al-Zaidi is outstanding and will hopefully be able to handle things very well."

Trump also gave his account of how the terror group ISIS emerged in Iraq. "They fired the soldiers, they fired the generals, they fired the police, they fired everybody in the home office, or the equivalent. They had nobody," he said. "So they had Iraq and nobody to run it, and you know what happened? ISIS formed. The generals and all of the police that all got fired, everybody was fired in that country. They'd call in, nobody would answer the phones. It was a mess."

He said the US now approaches such situations differently. "We do it a lot differently. We learned from the stupidity of what they did there," Trump said. "But ISIS formed out of all those people that got fired so stupidly."

He closed his remarks on Iraq with the mission's stated purpose. "We came to fight a caliphate, and there is no longer a caliphate, so we are going home indeed."