Washington (EFE).- The United States President Donald Trump stated on Wednesday that the end of the mission against the Islamic State and that day’s withdrawal of American troops from Iraq «is a victory for the United States,» as well as for the Arab nation.
«Today,I am pleased to announce that the last American Forces are leaving Iraq!» Trump said during an event at the White House, reading part of a statement that he posted almost simultaneously on social media.
«This day is a victory for the United States. It’s a victory for Iraq and a decisive victory over ISIS which has been completely decimated which is the reason we went in there in the first place,» the Republican added.
«I decimated them and took them out in my first administration,» he said, referencing his term that began in 2017, when the defeat of ISIS in Iraq was declared.
Trump emphasized that US troops are concluding this deployment leaving Iraq “having a wonderful new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi,» a politician whom the American leader boasted of having «supported from the very beginning.»
The President insisted on comparing this withdrawal to the one from Afghanistan under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden (2021-2025), a retreat he has repeatedly criticized, particularly regarding the attacks that claimed the lives of 13 US service members at Kabul airport in the moments leading up to the exit.
Trump pointed out that Wednesday’s operation was carried out in an orderly fashion, «unlike Afghanistan, where much military equipment and everything else was left behind, and 13 warriors laid dead.”
He described the organized exit of coalition personnel and military hardware from Erbil Air Base as the conclusion of an extremely costly military involvement.
«A lot of people wanted us to be permanently there. I had a choice: to stay or to leave, and felt without question that it was time for America to go home,» the president concluded.
The troop withdrawal was agreed upon by Washington and Baghdad in 2024 and executed gradually up until Wednesday. EFE
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