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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi sealed an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after US troops were sent to the country.
Coupled with Biden’s withdrawal of the last American forces in Afghanistan by the end of August, the president is completing US combat missions in the two wars that then-President George W. Bush began under his watch.
Biden and Kadhimi met in the Oval Office for their first face-to-face talks as part of a strategic dialogue between the United States and Iraq.
“Our role in Iraq will be … to be available, to continue to train, to assist, to help and to deal with ISIS as it arises, but we’re not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission,” Biden told reporters as he and Kadhimi met.
There are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq focusing on countering the remnants of Islamic State. The US role in Iraq will shift entirely to training and advising the Iraqi military to defend itself. The shift is not expected to have a major impact since the United States has already moved toward focusing on training Iraqi forces.
US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 based on charges that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s government possessed weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was ousted from power, but such weapons were never found.
In recent years the US mission was dominated by helping defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. US diplomats and troops in Iraq and Syria were targeted in three rocket and drone attacks earlier this month.
Kadhimi is seen as friendly to the United States and has tried to check the power of Iran-aligned militias. But his government condemned a U.S. air raid against Iran-aligned fighters along its border with Syria in late June, calling it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
The US-Iraqi statement is expected to detail a number of non-military agreements related to health, energy and other matters. The United States plans to provide Iraq with 500,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine under the global COVAX vaccine-sharing program. Biden said the doses should arrive in a couple of weeks.
The United States will also provide $5.2 million to help fund a UN mission to monitor October elections in Iraq. “We’re looking forward to seeing an election in October,” said Biden.
