American forces finished their withdrawal from Iraq on Wednesday, closing a 12-year mission against ISIS that President Trump said finally put a costly chapter into history.
ABC News reported that U.S. Central Command confirmed the military completed its withdrawal of troops from Iraq on Wednesday, the final pullout date under a plan first negotiated years earlier. About 2,500 U.S. troops had remained in the country for years before the exit.
Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell cast the departure as proof the long fight worked and as a shift in how Washington and Baghdad will work together going forward.
Parnell said:
"This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,"
He added:
"It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship."
President Donald Trump applauded the milestone on his social media platform the same day. He tied the exit to years of bad choices that first pulled America deep into Iraq, and he framed Wednesday as the moment that chapter closed.
Trump wrote:
"Today, I am pleased to announce, that the last American Forces are leaving Iraq! It has been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place, but soon, that will be part of History,"
The Pentagon said the Biden administration negotiated the withdrawal with Iraq in 2024. The Trump administration kept that plan in place and held to Sept. 30 as the final pullout date. Forces had already been consolidating into northern Iraq and moving out from Erbil in recent months, leaving only a very small presence before the last step.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi attended a ceremony his office said marked the end of the international mission to combat ISIS in Iraq. His office said he stressed that Iraqi security agencies now hold full control over the security and operational landscape across the country after years of sacrifice.
Wednesday’s full exit fits a pattern Trump has chased for years: cut the open-ended deployments and hand real responsibility to local partners when they can carry it. In 2020, during his first term, the administration moved to shrink the Iraq force from about 5,200 troops to 3,000.
Breitbart reported then that Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie announced the cut of 2,200 troops and tied it to Iraqi Security Forces’ growing ability to operate on their own. McKenzie said the decision came in consultation with the Iraqi government and coalition partners.
The Washington Examiner noted the same CENTCOM announcement fulfilled a Trump promise while still leaving room for U.S. help against the Islamic State. The drawdown cut remaining forces roughly in half without ending the counter-ISIS support role overnight.
Those earlier steps match the larger goal Trump has stated again and again: end endless wars and bring American troops home when the mission allows it. Bold White House projects under Trump have likewise forced Washington to adjust to decisions made outside the old consensus.
The New York Post reported that Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. confirmed the drop to 3,000 and said the smaller footprint still let U.S. forces advise Iraqi partners against the last ISIS remnants. Trump had discussed the reduction in a White House meeting with then-Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and said that at some point American forces would obviously be gone.
The Washington Free Beacon added that a senior administration official expected Trump himself to announce the 2020 reduction, a move long expected after he campaigned on ending America’s endless wars and restated that pledge while meeting Iraq’s prime minister. Gen. McKenzie said partner capacity programs were expanding so the U.S. footprint could shrink.
The modern U.S. military story in Iraq did not start with ISIS. The 2003 invasion opened an eight-year presence that ended with a full pullout in 2011. Roughly 4,500 American service members died across more than two decades of operations there, the vast majority between 2003 and 2011.
In 2014 the United States returned after ISIS seized wide areas of Syria and northern Iraq and threatened the approaches to Baghdad. U.S. and coalition forces later defeated ISIS as an organized military force by 2019. A continued American presence was then treated as insurance against a comeback. That advisory and support mission stretched another half-dozen years until this week’s exit.
Earlier this year the United States also withdrew forces from eastern Syria, a separate move tied to pressure from the new Syrian government against U.S. Kurdish partners there. Inside Iraq, the drawdown to Erbil and the north had already been underway for months before the final September deadline.
Trump’s willingness to lock in a hard end date stands in contrast to the long habit of leaving timelines open-ended. Other Trump ideas that upend Washington habits have followed the same pattern: state the change clearly and make the bureaucracy live with it.
Parnell’s statement put the core claim in plain terms. The wartime coalition mission is over. Iraqi security forces are now expected to own the fight inside their borders, backed by a more ordinary bilateral security relationship rather than a large U.S. combat presence.
Al-Zaidi’s office struck the same note from Baghdad’s side, saying Iraqi agencies across all branches now control the security and operational picture nationwide. That is the test that matters next. Officials on both sides describe ISIS as defeated as an organized military threat. Open questions remain about whether the group could rebuild if pressure slips.
The 2024 negotiation under Biden set the architecture. Trump’s team kept the September 30 finish line and carried it through. That continuity matters for allies watching whether American commitments swing wildly with each election. It also matters for voters who heard repeated promises to stop policing distant deserts with no clear off-ramp.
Political fights at home still swirl around Trump’s second term, including Democratic talk of fresh impeachment efforts if the House flips. Foreign deployments of this size rarely stay sealed off from that noise. Yet the troop decision itself followed a published timetable and a public Pentagon readout rather than a surprise midnight order.
Personnel shifts inside national security agencies have also marked the period, from high-level FBI changes under Trump-era reforms to broader pressure for accountability. The Iraq exit sits in the same larger frame: reduce permanent overseas footprints where local forces can hold the line, and stop treating every advisory mission as permanent.
None of that erases the human cost already paid. The roughly 4,500 American dead remain the permanent ledger of the longer war. Most fell in the first phase. The anti-ISIS return after 2014 added more years, more rotations, and more risk for the smaller force that stayed to train and advise.
Images and official accounts in recent months showed the practical wind-down: equipment transfers to Iraqi units, reduced activity at bases such as those near Erbil, and final movements timed to the September deadline. CENTCOM’s description of an orderly process matches the absence of reports of a chaotic last-day scramble.
What remains is the bilateral relationship Parnell described, normal security cooperation without thousands of U.S. troops fixed inside Iraq. How durable that arrangement proves will depend on Iraqi performance against any ISIS remnant and on whether Tehran-backed militias test the new gap. Those answers sit outside Wednesday’s ceremony.
For now the facts on the ground are simple. The last American forces covered by this mission have left. A 12-year campaign against ISIS in Iraq has reached the end date Washington and Baghdad set. Trump called it the close of a long mistake. The Pentagon called it a successful transition. Iraqi leaders called it full control restored.
Taxpayers spent blood and treasure for two decades so Iraq could police its own territory. The only honest measure left is whether Baghdad finally does the job without calling American units back.
