US Forces Set to Leave Iraq’s Final Bases, Ending a 23-Year Military Chapter
United States forces are expected to leave their remaining bases in Iraq by Wednesday, September 30, closing a military chapter that began with the American-led invasion of 2003 and continued, with one major interruption, for more than two decades.
Reuters reported from Baghdad that the final withdrawal was proceeding under a transition agreement negotiated in 2024 during former President Joe Biden’s administration and being completed under President Donald Trump. About 4,500 American military personnel died in the Iraq war and its aftermath.
American troops initially withdrew at the end of 2011, eight years after the invasion removed Saddam Hussein from power. They returned in 2014 as part of an international coalition assembled to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces fight Islamic State, which had seized roughly one-third of the country.
Iraqi forces, supported by the coalition, recaptured the territory held by the group by 2017. The continuing foreign presence then shifted towards training, intelligence, logistical support and efforts to prevent Islamic State from rebuilding its network.
Iraq’s government says September 30 is the fixed and final deadline for the coalition’s military mission and that the country will no longer host foreign military bases. Earlier Iraqi statements described the next phase as a bilateral economic, diplomatic and security partnership rather than a continuing foreign combat presence.
The departure carries sharply different meanings for the parties involved. Baghdad presents it as evidence that Iraqi institutions and armed forces can now assume responsibility for national security. Iran and the Iraqi factions aligned with it are portraying the withdrawal as a strategic defeat for Washington.
Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander within the Iran-aligned Islamic Resistance in Iraq, told Reuters that the departure represented a victory for the armed factions that had opposed the American presence. Iran has consistently sought the removal of US forces from Iraq and the wider region.
For Washington, the withdrawal removes a military deployment that had served not only the campaign against Islamic State but also as a counterweight to Iranian influence. Iraq has maintained close relationships with both countries, frequently placing it at the centre of their regional rivalry.
That rivalry has repeatedly turned Iraqi territory into a battlefield. The United States killed senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a 2020 strike near Baghdad International Airport. Iran-backed groups have also attacked American bases, drawing US military retaliation.
The present withdrawal is taking place during a wider conflict involving the United States and Iran. Reuters reported that seven of the 18 American service members listed as killed during that conflict died in Iraq, including a soldier killed near Erbil in July during the controlled detonation of a drone.
Some Iraqi leaders and security officials support the principle of full sovereignty but question whether the timing is safe. They fear that heavily armed factions aligned with Iran could translate the departure into greater influence over Iraq’s political and security institutions.
A second concern is Islamic State. Although the organisation no longer controls significant territory, its remaining fighters operate through sleeper cells and small networks in parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Kurdish commander Sirwan Barzani told Reuters that movement by suspected Islamic State cells had increased as the withdrawal approached. Iraqi officials also said a suspected cell had been preparing suicide attacks timed to coincide with the coalition’s departure. Those warnings indicate an active threat, but they do not establish that a broad Islamic State resurgence is already underway.
The loss of American intelligence, drone surveillance and logistical assistance may test Iraqi forces, particularly in remote areas and across territory disputed between the federal government and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.
Iraq’s government maintains that its military and security services are capable of defending the country. The United States has similarly described the transition as the result of progress made by Iraqi forces and the coalition’s success in dismantling Islamic State’s territorial rule.
The distinction between ending a coalition mission and terminating every form of security cooperation will remain important. Earlier US-Iraq agreements anticipated a transition towards bilateral partnerships, while the number and future location of departing personnel have not been publicly detailed.
The final operational departure must therefore be confirmed after the September 30 deadline. Reuters says the troops are leaving their last Iraqi bases, but neither government has released a complete final manifest or an independently verifiable count of the personnel remaining immediately before the deadline.
For Iraqis, the milestone does not erase the consequences of the intervention. The invasion removed a dictatorship but was followed by occupation, insurgency, sectarian conflict, institutional disruption and the eventual rise of Islamic State.
For the United States, it closes the physical military presence associated with one of its longest and most consequential overseas interventions. For Iran, it removes a direct American military counterweight from a neighbouring country where Tehran’s political and armed allies already exercise substantial influence.
The withdrawal may formally end the US military mission inside Iraq, but its strategic consequences are only beginning. The central test will be whether Iraqi institutions can preserve security and control armed groups without again becoming an arena for regional powers or a renewed Islamic State campaign.
