On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office for only the second time in his presidency. Obama wanted to announce that he has made good on his pledge to “end the combat mission in Iraq by the end of August 2010,” which was outlined in his National Security Strategy in May.
Although this marks a mile stone in history, the exact definition of “combat mission” is a little convoluted. There are still 47,500 members of the US Armed Forces which will remain in Iraq to help Iraqi police and security forces. Some of the soldiers still patrolling the city streets and countryside are on their fourth tour and have been there since the fighting began in 2003.
The key shift according to Obama is that, “Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.” Therefore, the remaining American troops will play a supporting role behind Iraqi police and security forces. He also stated that all of America’s troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of next year.
Obama has withdrawn nearly 100,000 troops since he took office in January of 2009. He reiterated the fact that he, “disagreed about the war from its outset,” reminding Americans that Operation Iraqi Freedom was not a war he wanted to fight but is now a war that he must end without leaving the country in chaos.
By all accounts the situation on the ground has improved over the last few years, although simply improving on the bloodshed that was seen during the depths of the insurgency cannot be seen as a true victory.
Obama is in a precarious spot, no matter what he does detractors are either going to say that he hasn’t done enough to win in Iraq or that he hasn’t withdrawn quickly enough. He most assuredly wants his legacy in Iraq to be kept in an appropriate context.
After the address, Republicans immediately began criticizing Obama for not giving his predecessor George W. Bush enough credit for the 2007 troop surge in Iraq. Obama made it clear that he does not want this address to be remembered as his version of Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” rally which took place on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln back in 2003.
He insisted that there would be no “victory lap” reminding the prime time audience that 4,400 American troops have died and another 32,000 have been wounded in Iraq. There is also another war in Afghanistan being waged; one that Obama has only given very broad timetables for withdrawal.