{"id":6660,"date":"2026-07-15T12:43:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T07:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=6660"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:43:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T07:43:32","slug":"us-military-will-be-out-of-iraq-by-end-of-september-iraqi-prime-minister-and-pentagon-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=6660","title":{"rendered":"US military will be out of Iraq by end of September, Iraqi prime minister and Pentagon say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/07\/14\/Trump_Iraq_35867_s1440x960.jpg?f72536d07237fdd262042ae8f5e6e6de3b865f3c\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. military will leave Iraq by the end of September, American and Iraqi officials said Tuesday, following a 23-year presence that started with the 2003 invasion against Saddam Hussein and ended with much smaller operations against the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump, standing alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi at the White House, said \u201cwe don\u2019t think we need the military there anymore\u201d and noted Iraq\u2019s growing relationships with oil companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe relationship is a whole big relationship where we don\u2019t need the military,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019re there to help them. We\u2019re there to protect them if need be. But we don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to be necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking through an interpreter, al-Zaidi said \u201cU.S. forces will be out of Iraq\u201d by Sept. 30, \u201cwhile U.S. companies will be inside Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon said in a subsequent statement that it was reaffirming a 2024 agreement with Iraq to end its mission against IS fighters. Many of the U.S. troops still serving in Iraq at the time of the deal, which was made during the Biden administration, already have departed.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has been shifting the burden for combating IS in Iraq from American and coalition forces to Iraqi troops who have been trained by the U.S. military. American troops have been diminishing their footprint, withdrawing from areas and consolidating forces.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003 in what it called a massive \u201cshock and awe\u201d bombing campaign that lit up the skies, laid waste to large sections of the country and paved the way for American ground troops to converge on Baghdad. The invasion was based on what turned out to be faulty claims that Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons never materialized.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The U.S. presence grew to more than 170,000 troops at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. The Obama administration negotiated the drawdown of forces, and in December 2011, the final combat troops departed, leaving only a small number of military personnel behind to staff an office of security assistance and a detachment of Marines to guard the embassy compound.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, the rise of the Islamic State group and its rapid capture of a wide swath across Iraq and Syria brought U.S. and partner nation forces back at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help rebuild and retrain police and military units that had fallen apart and fled.<\/p>\n<p>                        <a name=\"pagebreak\"\/><\/p>\n<p>After IS lost its hold on the territory it once claimed, coalition military operations ended in 2021. The U.S. had maintained about 2,500 troops in Iraq for training and to conduct partnered counter-IS operations with Iraq\u2019s military. Many have withdrawn since the 2024 agreement to end the mission, with just a small contingent of military advisers and others still remaining in Iraq.<\/p>\n<div class=\"permission\" style=\"padding-top: 25px;\">\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 The Washington Times, LLC.\n                        <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. military will leave Iraq by the end of September, American and Iraqi officials said Tuesday, following a 23-year presence that started with the 2003 invasion against Saddam Hussein and ended with much smaller operations against the Islamic State group. President Donald Trump, standing alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi at the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/07\/14\/US_Iraq_95359_c0-250-6000-3750_s1200x700.jpg?2cb823f519263a3e55a419724463fd44fb7f7c61","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}