Obama To End Combat In Iraq, Thanks U.S. Troops As War In Afghanistan Rages On

Telling Americans “it is time to turn the page,” President Barack Obama formally ended American combat missions in Iraq on Tuesday, ending a painful and polarizing period in contemporary U.S. history that has been compared to the national trauma over Vietnam decades earlier.

“Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest, it is in our own,” Obama said in only his second televised speech from the storied Oval Office.

“The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people. We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home.”

Indeed, in 18-minute remarks that paid tribute to the U.S. soldiers who have served in Iraq, Obama frequently stressed the enormous expense _ more than US$1 trillion _ of two overseas wars as the U.S. struggles to pull itself out of a devastating recession.

“Unfortunately, over the last decade, we have not done what is necessary to shore up the foundation of our own prosperity,” he said.

“We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits.”

Like the American public, Obama has long been opposed to the war in Iraq.

While running for president in 2008, Obama said U.S. military efforts should have instead been focused on Afghanistan, a battleground that has evolved into a critical hotspot and the true epicentre of the so-called war on terror that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.

Canadian troops have been in Afghanistan since early 2002.

In 2003, during the waning months of Jean Chretien’s decade as prime minister, he kept Canada out of Iraq, opting to avoid a war based on the shadowy and uncertain threat of weapons of mass destruction apparently obtained by Saddam Hussein.

Obama acknowledged his disagreement with his predecessor, George W. Bush, over Iraq from the Oval Office on Tuesday. The two men spoke on the telephone earlier in the day.

“It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset,” Obama said. “Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.”

Now America’s attention turns further to the country where more than 150 Canadian soldiers have died in the past eight years. Obama said additional troops were in Afghanistan for a limited time period to “to break the Taliban’s momentum.”

“The pace of our troop reductions will be determined by conditions on the ground, and our support for Afghanistan will endure. But make no mistake: this transition will begin, because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s.”

Martin Rudner, a retired terrorism expert at Ottawa’s Carleton University, said Iraq was a success, despite Obama’s misgivings in 2007 about an escalation of force in the conflict that turned the tide in America’s favour.

“There’s no question Iraq has been transformed,” he said earlier Tuesday.

“There have been elections in Iraq, there is fragile democracy in Iraq. The country has been transformed in a way that was unimaginable when Saddam Hussein was in power, and that is a result of the U.S.-led invasion.”

Chretien’s decision to steer clear of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was based in part on intelligence from Canadian agencies, who reported they could not verify there were any weapons of mass destruction in the country.

“They weren’t wholly convinced about the intelligence that was driving the invasion of Iraq, and so they held back,” Rudner said. “The invasion of Afghanistan was a totally different situation; it was a NATO mission without dissent. There was no question bin Laden was there and there was no question he was being given sanctuary.”

In the years to follow, the U.S. too has come to see Afghanistan as a far more integral chess piece in the war against terror after seven bloody years in Iraq, during which the lives of more than 4,400 U.S. troops and upwards of 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been lost.

Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops now remain in Iraq, down from a peak of nearly 170,000 at the height of the 2007 military surge, and more soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan. Obama has said he’s removing all forces from Iraq by the end of 2011.

In advance of Obama’s speech on Tuesday, the White House made it clear there would be no “mission accomplished” moment, making reference to the infamous George W. Bush misstep in 2003. Bush, standing on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier off the coast of California, declared the end to major combat operations in Iraq as a banner emblazoned with the words “Mission Accomplished” flew behind him.

The banner inflamed tensions in Iraq, and the insurgency strengthened in the months and years to follow. The vast majority of casualties in Iraq, both military and civilian, took place after the Bush speech.

Bush later said he regretted the use of the banner.

“To some, it said, ‘Well, Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over,’ when I didn’t think that. It conveyed the wrong message,” he said in November 2008.

But Obama faced his own criticisms on Tuesday.

Hours before Obama’s address, House Republican Leader John Boehner reminded the president of his past opposition to Bush’s military strategy in Iraq.

“Some leaders who opposed, criticized and fought tooth and nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results,” Boehner told the American Legion’s 92nd national convention in Milwaukee.

“Today we mark not the defeat those voices anticipated — but progress.”

Nonetheless, Tuesday’s milestone comes with Iraq facing political deadlock as it attempts to form the country’s next government following inconclusive general elections held in March. A series of recent bombings have killed dozens of people as insurgents take advantage of the political uncertainty to pound away at Iraqi security forces.

U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden is in Iraq this week. He’s expected to make a renewed appeal to Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to end the political deadlock and seat a new government.

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