Iraq War: You leave Iraq with heads held high, President Obama tells US forces

For eight years, it has flapped violently through storms and lain limp during dead calms. Nine times, on “Memorial Day” it was lowered to half mast in respect for those who had fought and died for its stars and stripes. Yesterday, the flag of the American forces in Iraq was finally lowered, wrapped in camouflage, as is tradition, and readied to be flown home to be “cased”.

While historians and politicians will continue to debate if the mission was ever accomplished, it was, definitively, over. The historical calculation of the cost of a military campaign is in “blood and treasure”. The cost in spilt blood to the armed forces of the United States was 4,487 troops killed, and a further 32,000 wounded. The cost in “treasure” is more than £500 billion.

Yet at the ceremony at Baghdad International Airport, Leon Panetta, the US defense secretary, insisted to those troops gathered and ready to depart that the mission was worth the cost. He said the years of war in Iraq had yielded to an era of opportunity in which the US was a committed partner. Only about 4,000 US soldiers now remain in Iraq, but they are due to leave in the next two weeks. At the peak of the operation, US forces there numbered 170,000.

The symbolic ceremony in Baghdad officially “cased” (retired) the US forces flag, according to army tradition. It will now be taken back to the USA. Mr Panetta told US soldiers they could leave Iraq with great pride. “After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real,” he said.

The conflict, launched by the Bush administration in March 2003, soon became hugely unpopular as claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction and supporting al-Qaeda militants turned out to be false. After a massive “shock and awe” operation that lasted just 44 days, between 19 March and 1 May, 2003, President Bush, now infamously, arrived on a US airship carrier by fighter jet and declared: “Mission accomplished”. Instead the US troops would spend the next five years bogged down in a violent sectarian insurgency that would claim a minimum of 100,000 Iraqi lives and flourish in the political vacuum following the collapse of Saddam’s regime.

President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging to bring troops home, said on Wednesday that the US left behind a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq”. In a speech in North Carolina to troops who have just returned, he hailed the “extraordinary achievement” of the military and said they were leaving with “heads held high”. He said: “Everything that American troops have done in Iraq, all the fighting and dying, bleeding and building, training and partnering, has led us to this moment of success. You have shown why the US military is the finest fighting force in the history of the world. The war in Iraq will soon belong to history, and your service belongs to the ages.”

He said the war had been “a source of great controversy” but that they had helped to build “a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.”

Mr Obama announced in October that all US troops would leave Iraq by the end of 2011, a date previously agreed by Mr Bush in 2008. More than 1.5 million Americans have served in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003. Troop numbers peaked during the height of the so-called surge strategy in 2007, but the last combat troops left Iraq in August last year.

A small contingent of some 200 soldiers will remain in Iraq as advisers, while some 15,000 US personnel are now based at the US embassy in Baghdad – by far the world’s largest.

Yet the nation remains one of the most dangerous with the State Department borrowing a fleet of the army’s most heavily armoured vehicles and other military equipment in order to protect their staff who are also guarded by 5,000 security contractors. It has also acquired the latest surveillance systems which will scan the perimeter of the compound for “threats”.

The continued American presence was reiterated by Mr Obama when he met the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in Washington earlier this week, and vowed to remain committed to Iraq as the two countries struggle to define their new relationship. Ending the war was an early goal of the Obama administration, and the ceremony will allow the president to fulfil a crucial campaign promise during a politically opportune time.

The ceremony at Baghdad International Airport also featured remarks from General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Lloyd Austin, the top US commander in Iraq. Gen Austin has been leading the massive logistical challenge of closing hundreds of bases and combat outposts, and methodically moving more than 50,000 US troops and their equipment out of Iraq over the last year.

Over the coming days, the final few thousand US troops will leave Iraq in orderly caravans and tightly scheduled flights. The total US departure is slightly earlier than initially planned, and military leaders worry that it is premature for the Iraqi security forces, who face continuing struggles to develop the logistics, air operations, surveillance and intelligence-sharing capabilities they will need.

US officials were unable to reach an agreement with the Iraqis on legal issues and troop immunity that would have allowed a small training and counter-terrorism force to remain. US defence officials said they expect there will be no movement on that issue until sometime next year. Meanwhile concerns have also been voiced in Washington that Iraq lacks robust political structures or an ability to defend its borders. There are also fears that Iraq could be plunged back into sectarian bloodletting, or be unduly influenced by Iran. Some Iraqis have said they fear the consequences of being left to manage their own security. Yesterday, Malik Abed, a Baghdad trader, said he was grateful to the US for ridding Iraq of Saddam but added: “I think now we are going to be in trouble. Maybe the terrorists will start attacking us again.”

In the city of Falluja, a former insurgent stronghold which was the scene of major US offensives in 2004, people burned US flags this week in celebration at the withdrawal. “No-one trusted their promises, but they said when they came to Iraq they would bring security, stability and would build our country,” said Ahmed Aied, a grocer.

“Now they are walking out, leaving behind killings, ruin and mess.”

The Iraq War in numbers

• 18,000 UK troops in May 2003.

• 44 UK troops in December 2011.

• 179 UK servicemen and women killed in Iraq.

• 654,965 estimated civilian deaths.

• 4,487 US troops killed.

• 97,461 lowest estimated civilian deaths.

• $802bn Cost to the US government for the war.

• £9.24bn Cost to the British government for the war.