[PF:167764] US troops quit Iraq 9 years after invasion

US troops quit Iraq 9 years after invasion

IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER, Dec 18: The last US forces left Iraq and entered Kuwait on Sunday, nearly nine years after launching a divisive war to oust Saddam Hussein, and just as the oil-rich country grapples with renewed political deadlock.

The last of roughly 110 vehicles carrying 500-odd troops mostly from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, crossed the border at 7:38am (0438 GMT), leaving just 157 military trainers at the US embassy, in a country where there were once nearly 170,000 troops on 505 bases.

It ended a war that left tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,500 American soldiers dead, many more wounded, and 1.75 million Iraqis displaced, after the US-led invasion unleashed sectarian killings.

"I am proud — all Iraqis should be proud, like all those whose country has been freed," 26-year-old baker Safa, who did not want to give his real name, told AFP in Baghdad.

"The Americans toppled Saddam, but our lives since then have gone backward."

A 50-year-old mother-of-four who gave her name only as Umm Mohammed added: "I don't think we can ever forgive the Americans for what they did to us."

The Americans were also happy. "It feels good, it feels real good" to be out of Iraq, Sergeant Duane Austin said after getting out of his vehicle in Kuwait.

"It's been a pretty long year – it's time to go home now." The 27-year-old father-of-two, who completed three tours in Iraq, added: "It's been a long time, coming and going. It's been pretty hard on all of us. … (It will) be a nice break to get back,
knowing that it's over with now."

The last vehicles transporting US troops out of Iraq left the recently handed over Imam Ali Base outside the southern city of Nasiriyah at 2:30am to make the 350km journey south to the Kuwaiti border.

They travelled down a mostly deserted route, which US forces paid Shia tribal sheikhs to inspect regularly to ensure no attacks could take place.

Five hours later, they crossed a berm at the Kuwaiti border lit with floodlights and ringed with barbed wire.

The withdrawal comes as Iraq struggles with renewed political deadlock as its main Sunni-backed bloc said it was boycotting parliament and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki moved to oust one of his deputies.

Mr Maliki sent a letter to parliament urging MPs to withdraw confidence in Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak, a member of the secular Iraqiya party, after Mr Mutlak accused him of being "worse than Saddam," an aide to the premier said.—AFP

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