Pentagon Confirms Final US Troops Have Left Iraq, Ending 23-Year Military Presence

The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that the last remaining American troops assigned to the anti-ISIL coalition mission have departed Iraq, bringing an official close to a US military footprint that began with the 2003 invasion and stretched across nearly a quarter-century of war, occupation, and advisory operations.

Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell said the residual US forces, along with other international coalition personnel and their equipment, carried out an "orderly departure" from Erbil Airbase, located in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. The exit marks the culmination of a phased drawdown that had been negotiated over several years.

The withdrawal's roots stretch back to 2003, when a US-led coalition invaded Iraq under the banner of the so-called Global War on Terror. American force levels peaked at roughly 170,000 military personnel in 2007 during the height of the surge. Washington pulled its combat troops out in 2011, only to redeploy them in 2015 after ISIL seized swaths of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Following ISIL's territorial defeat in 2017, the foreign military presence shifted toward an advisory and training role. By the end of last year, the few hundred remaining coalition troops had been consolidated at Erbil, setting the stage for the final departure confirmed this week.

Parnell characterized the drawdown as evidence of a successful campaign, describing it as "the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region." He added that the moment signals a transition away from a wartime coalition framework toward what he described as a more conventional bilateral security partnership led by Iraqi forces.

The timeline of the exit reflects a political commitment that spanned two US administrations. President Donald Trump first announced in 2020 his intention to remove all troops from Iraq, fulfilling an earlier campaign pledge to wind down what he called America's "endless wars." The formal withdrawal plan was ultimately signed in 2024 by former President Joe Biden and then-Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

With US forces gone, Parnell indicated that the burden of securing the country now falls primarily on Baghdad. He said the "primary responsibility for addressing Iraq's remaining security challenges, including ISIS remnants and Iran-aligned militias that undermine Iraqi sovereignty and regional stability, now rests with the Government of Iraq." Washington, he added, expects Iraqi Security Forces — including the Kurdish Peshmerga and other forces in the Kurdistan Region — to lead ongoing efforts to keep ISIL remnants suppressed, while the Department of War continues to offer targeted training and intelligence assistance.

The US military command overseeing the Middle East, CENTCOM, confirmed that the task force responsible for anti-ISIL operations has been relocated to Jordan. Several hundred American troops remain stationed in Syria. According to CENTCOM, Erbil Airbase had hosted approximately 1,500 US and coalition personnel before the departure.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi welcomed the withdrawal as the start of a new chapter, saying ties with Washington would shift toward more traditional economic and security relations between two sovereign states. He has urged regional and foreign powers to invest in Iraq, framing the moment as an opportunity to rebuild and diversify the country's economy.

The departure unfolds against a fragile regional backdrop. Iraq has remained comparatively stable despite being surrounded by conflict, most notably the US-Israeli war with Iran that has been ongoing since February. The government in Baghdad now confronts a precarious security environment in which it must assert control without the direct backing of American firepower.

At the same time, al-Zaidi is pursuing a broader initiative to disarm powerful militias, including several with close ties to Iran, with a target deadline of June 2027. Many of those armed groups have long cited the US military presence as justification for retaining their weapons and independent command structures. Analysts have warned that the prime minister's approach could eventually trigger an internal standoff, as well as renewed external pressure from Washington if Iran-aligned factions escalate attacks on US assets in the region.

Kurdish officials have emerged as some of the most outspoken critics of the withdrawal. They argue that the absence of US forces leaves the Kurdistan region exposed both to potential Iranian strikes and to a possible resurgence of ISIL. The concern reflects long-standing Kurdish anxieties about their security within a federal Iraq that has often been unstable.

Iraqi government forces, for their part, have maintained that they possess the capacity to counter security threats, including ISIL, without an American military footprint. Officials in Baghdad have expressed confidence in the capabilities of the national security apparatus.

ISIL, though territorially defeated, continues to maintain sleeper cells across both Iraq and Syria. Iraqi officials have cautioned that the group may attempt to ramp up its operations in the wake of the US withdrawal, exploiting any perceived security vacuum. The coming months will test whether Iraqi forces can contain that threat while simultaneously managing internal militia disarmament and external regional pressures.