What Does the End of the U.S. Combat Mission in Iraq Really Mean? |
On Saturday, my colleagues Jane Arraf and Eric Schmitt reported that Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the prime minister of Iraq, would travel to Washington, D.C., to request a formal end to the United States' combat mission in his country. |
 | | American forces surveying damage at Ayn al-Asad Air Base in Anbar Province, Iraq, after it was struck by Iranian missiles in January last year.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times |
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The change in terminology appears to be just that, however. The Pentagon has offered little in the way of information about what American troops still do in Iraq, other than their role in supporting the 900 Americans fighting the Islamic State next door in Syria. |
With the United States pulling all of its troops out of Afghanistan, save for 650 service members who will help defend the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, it is hard to see what Americans are still doing on the ground in Iraq 18 years after launching an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. |
And it is even more difficult to understand what the U.S. military can hope to accomplish more than 14 years after it admitted that there is "no military solution" to the conflict there. |
This week's announcement made me think of that moment in 2007 when an American president decided to create a "surge" of troops to help defeat insurgents in Iraq once and for all. If there was any sort of victory to be had, that was supposed to be it. |
Shortly after I arrived at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, near Tikrit, I saw Lt. Gen. David Petraeus testify in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, giving his assessment of the war he had just been nominated to lead. |
"Some of the members of this committee have observed that there is no military solution to the problems of Iraq," General Petraeus said in the televised address. "They are correct." |
The general's words landed hard among the people I was with, who had also just found out their tours in Iraq would be extended from 12 to 15 months. I remember thinking, "If there's no military solution to this war, then what the hell are we doing here?" |
There was no answer to that question, only more work for us and a 24/7 cycle of dealing with improvised bombs killing our people. |
At the end of 2006, just before the surge was announced and General Petraeus told us that a military victory was impossible, slightly more than 3,000 Americans had been killed in that country at that point and nearly 23,000 had been wounded. |
The war kept grinding on, killing another 904 U.S. troops the year I was there — a figure that includes several friends of mine. In all, 2007 was the deadliest single year for the United States in Iraq. |
Our war in Iraq has changed over time. American troop levels came down. Al Qaeda in Iraq became the Islamic State and took over large parts of the country, only to be met with a devastating air campaign that killed ISIS fighters and civilians alike. Mosul was destroyed. |
As the Iraqi and American heads of state met at the White House this week, the total number of U.S. casualties stood at 4,586 dead and 32,455 wounded, according to icasualties.org — about a 50% increase since 2007. |
On social media, I have not seen anyone I served with commenting one way or another about Monday's announcement. There has been no gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over what a withdrawal from Iraq means, and whether any of the sacrifices made there were "worth it." |
Mainly, it's just kind of hard to believe sometimes that, as a nation, we're still there at all. |
John Ismay is a Pentagon correspondent in the Washington bureau, and previously served as the At War reporter covering armed conflict for The New York Times Magazine. |
Afghan War Casualty Report: July 2021 |
 | | Afghan security forces inspected the site of a bomb explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, in June.Rahmat Gul/Associated Press |
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Here are four articles from The Times that you may have missed. |
 | | A U.N. convoy leaving Tigray along a road that passes through some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth in Ethiopia.Declan Walsh/The New York Times |
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"This is a desperate, desperate situation." Aid workers say an unofficial Ethiopian government blockade has cut off the route into Tigray, using tactics of obstruction and intimidation and exacerbating what some call the world's worst humanitarian crisis in a decade. [Read the article.] |
"Germany has been at the forefront at fighting against this impunity because you have so many Syrians living in the country." A Syrian military doctor accused of torturing opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in military facilities in Syria a decade ago, and killing at least one, was indicted on Wednesday on charges of crimes against humanity by the German federal prosecutor. [Read the article.] |
"I have always just been waiting for the day I can go back." Hundreds of immigrant military veterans have faced lifetime banishment from their birth countries as a result of crimes, often minor, that they committed after their military service. The Biden administration said it will begin readmitting them. [Read the article.] |
These women shine the brightest. An intrepid, immersive documentary follows the men and women who rescue Yazidi girls kidnapped and held by Islamic State fighters in a Syrian refugee camp. [Read the review.] |
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