MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Obama announces end of war in Iraq and will pull out troops by end of the year

After nearly nine years a US president makes the historical announcement

President Barack Obama vowed to pull all US troops from Iraq this year, symbolically ending the war but dashing US hopes of leaving a few thousand troops to buttress a still shaky Iraq and offset neighbouring Iran's influence.

After months of negotiations with officials in Baghdad failed to reach an agreement to keep possibly thousands of US troops in Iraq as trainers, Obama announced on Friday he would stick to plans to pull out the remaining force of 40,000 by year's end.

“After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over,” Obama told reporters.

The announcement is a milestone more than eight and a half years after the Bush administration led the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein based on warnings of weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.

Obama, eyeing a 2012 re-election campaign likely to be fought over his handling of the US economy, is looking to wind down a decade of war in the Muslim world that did lasting damage to the US image worldwide and stretched its military and budget to the brink.

In Iraq, where the US force peaked at around 190,000 during the height of President George W. Bush's troop surge in 2007, almost 4,500 US soldiers have died and the war has cost US taxpayers over $700 billion in military spending alone.

Even as leaders of Iraq's fragile democracy seek to distance themselves from Washington, Iraq is only slowly getting to its feet after years of ferocious violence that shattered its society and killed tens of thousands of people.

While Washington has hailed Iraq's halting progress, especially as tumult has swept the Middle East, its political system remains gripped by perennial deadlock on issues dividing a religiously and ethnically fractured country.

“I wish we had been able to make more progress in resolving the internal differences while our troops are still there,” said retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was national security advisor to President George H.W. Bush, and became a prominent Cassandra before the Iraq war.

Obama's announcement in the White House briefing room was freighted with political overtones. The president, who was an early opponent of the war and campaigned on a promise to end it, repeated his mantra that “The tide of war is receding.”

After nearly nine years a US president makes the historical announcement