[careinke]

By the end of the year. Awesome!

[Loki]

How many advisors and contractors will remain?

[careinke]

How many advisors and contractors will remain?

Initial indications are NONE. Seems the Iraqi's would not grant a SOFA agreement. I'm sure there will be Marines at the embassy but for now that's about it.

[Plantagenet]

Good to hear Obama failed in his year-long effort to convince the Iraqis to allow US troops to stay in Iraq.

Iraq is an oil-exporting country----they can afford to pay for their own defense.

[careinke]

I think we should give Obama ALL of the credit for this. Maybe it will inspire him to do the same in Afghanistan. Hell, I'd vote for him if our troops in Afghanistan were home by the November elections.

[Keith_McClary]

I think we should give Obama ALL of the credit for this.

Hey, Bush made the deal to leave. That's what ended the war.

I've been following this for months, it's been ignored by the media, especially US.

[careinke]

I think we should give Obama ALL of the credit for this.

Hey, Bush made the deal to leave. That's what ended the war.

I've been following this for months, it's been ignored by the media, especially US.

Sshhhh, who cares, give the credit to Obama so he will do the same for Afghanistan.

[Plantagenet]

I think we should give Obama ALL of the credit for this. Maybe it will inspire him to do the same in Afghanistan.

I don't mind giving Obama the credit---maybe he secretly wanted his own negotiations to stay in Iraq to fail and undercut his people somehow. And IMHO Obama also deserves some credit for toppling Khadaffi in Libya and Mubarek in Egypt.

Of course---its not quite clear yet where all this leading.

For instance, similar naive hope about the birth of democracy in the ME such as we are hearing now was voiced when Jimmy Carter convinced the Shah of Iran to leave Tehran, and we all know how that turned out.---Jimmy Carter only managed to fumble away Iran to anti-American Islamist fanatics----Obama has a real chance here to misplay things to the point that 1-5 new anti-American Islamist states ----Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan---are created in an arc across North Africa and the ME and Asia.

[Keith_McClary]

How many advisors and contractors will remain?

Initial indications are NONE. Seems the Iraqi's would not grant a SOFA agreement. I'm sure there will be Marines at the embassy but for now that's about it.

Security firms eye Libya from Afghan quagmire

The 2001 US-led invasion and subsequent fall of the Taliban opened up a goldmine for private security contractors, who won deals to guard embassies and NATO convoys, and offered logistical and consultancy services.
...
"Private security companies will be looking at moving their better personnel to a potentially more profitable theatre because of all the uncertainties here," said one adviser in the business.
Libya's oil wealth and the prospect of prolonged instability are likely to keep foreign security firms in business for some time.
"While the country (Libya) is in an unstable position, there's going to be plenty of work for companies like ours," said Johnson.

[Loki]

Hmmmm....

But the end of the war does not mean the end of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Indeed, speaking after the president’s brief announcement, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough acknowledged that the United States would continue to train Iraq’s military in the new weaponry that Obama has agreed to sell the government that emerged after U.S. troops toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Just this year, the Pentagon approved a sale of F-16s to Iraq’s air force.

Also remaining in Iraq will be military contractors who currently protect American diplomatic missions in Iraq, such as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Irbil.

“As part of a new agreement there will be Americans in Iraq training and assisting the Iraqi armed forces,” Qubad Talabani, the Kurdistan regional government representative in Washington and the son of Iraq’s president, told The Daily Beast. “These Americans will not be combat troops but they will be U.S. soldiers.”

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-declares-ir ... 00285.html

[ritter]

I don't mind giving Obama the credit---maybe he secretly wanted his own negotiations to stay in Iraq to fail and undercut his people somehow. And IMHO Obama also deserves some credit for toppling Khadaffi in Libya and Mubarek in Egypt.

Quoted for posterity!

[Expatriot]

This is awful news.

It means that something major is going to happen before then.

[gollum]

This is awful news.

It means that something major is going to happen before then.

I think there is a distinct possibility we wanted to be out of there before Israel attacked Iran.

[Keith_McClary]

Hmmmm....

...
“As part of a new agreement there will be Americans in Iraq training and assisting the Iraqi armed forces,” Qubad Talabani, the Kurdistan regional government representative in Washington and the son of Iraq’s president, told The Daily Beast. “These Americans will not be combat troops but they will be U.S. soldiers.”

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-declares-ir ... 00285.html

I'm seeing conflicting reports on this:
Despite Difficult Talks, U.S. and Iraq Had Expected Some American Troops to Stay

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta held out the possibility of keeping a small force of American military trainers in Iraq in the future, although there are no negotiations under way on numbers or a mission.

“We’re prepared to meet their training needs, we’re prepared to engage in exercises with them, we’re prepared to provide guidance and training with regard to their pilots, we’re prepared to continue to develop an ongoing relationship with them in the future,” Mr. Panetta told reporters on his plane on Friday en route to Indonesia.

On Friday evening, an American official in Iraq, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are confidential, said that negotiations would now center on arrangements that would begin next year, after all United States troops leave.

Possibilities being discussed are for some troops to return in 2012, an option preferred by some Iraqi politicians who want to claim credit for ending what many here still call an occupation, even though legally it ended years ago. Other scenarios being discussed include offering training in the United States, in a nearby country such as Kuwait, or having some troops here under NATO auspices.

[DomusAlbion]

To borrow a quote from my favorite cyborg:

"We'll be back"

This decision was more or less taken by the Iraqis themselves and Obama is just attempting to make domestic political gain from it. In reality in the not too distant future the armed forces of the USA will be back in the region and in force. The Empire needs their resources in able to survive.

[evilgenius]

Yep, we'll be back as soon as the Shiites and the Sunnis find themselves unable to share the country.

[gollum]

Yep, we'll be back as soon as the Shiites and the Sunnis find themselves unable to share the country.

I don't think so, Americans are angry and fed up they won't allow any more military antics involving ground troops in the middle east.

[Plantagenet]

Americans are angry and fed up they won't allow any more military antics involving ground troops in the middle east.

Thats not how the game is played nowadays---

As we just saw in Libya, Obama and his partners in NATO can just stand off and pound an oil-producing country with bombing raids and predator drone attacks month after month after month, with nary a peep of protest from the so-called anti-war people either in the US or Europe. Boots on the ground have been replaced by predator drones with hellfire missiles, but the result is the same: the USA and EU come into a ME country and divide up the oil and the new contracts to fix the oil infrastructure.

[DomusAlbion]

I don't think so, Americans are angry and fed up they won't allow any more military antics involving ground troops in the middle east.

I guess Idealism still lives. Mostly in the hearts of the young, I suspect.