President Donald Trump announced on X on September 30 that the last American forces have left Iraq, marking the end of a 23-year military involvement. Trump characterized the initial decision to enter Iraq as "very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire," and called the departure "a Great Day for America."
Tracing the operation's history, Trump noted it launched under President George W. Bush in 2003, continued under Barack Obama in 2014 and Joe Biden, and concluded in 2026 under his own leadership. He highlighted Iraq's new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, whom he "supported from the beginning and fully endorsed," as having won a landslide election he was not expected to win.
"Unlike Afghanistan, where much Military Equipment and everything else was left behind, and 13 Warriors lie dead, with many badly wounded, this orderly departure of Coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marks the end of a very expensive excursion into Hell," Trump wrote. "We came to fight a caliphate. There is no longer a caliphate. We are going home!" He declared the operation "a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS."
