A withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is overdue

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 7, 2021
Contact: press@defensepriorities.org

WASHINGTON, DC—In a strategic dialogue with Iraq held earlier today, the U.S. indicated its combat forces will exit Iraq, with the timing and details to be worked out in future discussions. Defense Priorities Policy Director Benjamin H. Friedman issued the following statement in response:

“The significance of the State Department’s mention of a potential ‘redeployment of combat forces’ away from Iraq is uncertain. Regardless, such a deployment is overdue. And U.S. forces devoted to training and advisory roles, rather than combat, should come home too. U.S. forces have been training and advising Iraq for more than a decade and a half now. If they aren’t able to take on ISIS’s remnants themselves, they will never be, and the training mission is futile.

“U.S. troops in Iraq regularly take rocket fire from Shi’ite militias, for no good reason. Those attacks invite retaliation, creating a risk of wider war pitting U.S. forces against Shi’ite extremists. Given the militias’ ties to Iran, U.S. forces in Iraq are also a potential pathway to a war with Tehran. The U.S. contingent in Iraq is more likely to fuel the extremism that might power a resurgence of ISIS or a group like it than to suppress it.

“After 18 years (or 30 if you go back to the Gulf War) it’s past time for the U.S. war in Iraq to finally end.”