US anticipates announcement to cut back troops in Iraq next week

A long-expected deal to reduce U.S. troop presence in Iraq will likely be announced next week, two administration officials said Friday. 

The agreement with Iraq, which would reduce American troops in the country, will come even as the battle persists against what remains of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. 

“ISIS has definitely been severely defeated, certainly territorially defeated, and we want to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS, but the threat does remain,” a senior defense official told reporters Friday. 

Iraqi officials have publicly stated that they want the 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq to leave by the end of 2026. American officials over the last year have been in negotiations with Iraq’s government over such a plan. Such talks are in the final stages, according to the officials.

“We haven't reached any final conclusions. I think this will kind of unfold over the course of next week,” an administration official said.  

U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, ousted former leader Saddam Hussein and then withdrew in 2011. But American troops returned in 2014 to fight ISIS as the head of a more than 80-member coalition, created to vanquish the terrorist group, which was declared defeated in 2017.

To keep the group at bay in the region, roughly 2,500 troops remain in Iraq as part of the coalition and are housed at three main bases — in Baghdad, in the western Anbar province and in the northern Kurdistan region.

U.S. officials want to keep a military footprint in Iraq, but Baghdad’s government as well as civilians want to see them gone. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani earlier this week declared that “the justifications are no longer there” for a large number of American troops in his country. “There is no need for a coalition. We have moved on from wars to stability. ISIS is not really representing a challenge.”

There is also heightened tensions in the region, with U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria coming under attack from Iranian proxies due to Israel’s war in Gaza.

The anticipated announcement from Washington and Baghdad is expected to come after officials from both countries meet at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, the officials said. 

While there is a “broad consensus” that the coalition will continue, “we will be transitioning away from the coalition military mission in Iraq more to enduring bilateral security partnerships,” the administration official said. 

That was discussed in talks between President Biden and Sudani when he visited Washington in April, they noted. 

“Since then, we've kind of been working with the Iraqis, and importantly, with all of our coalition partners to kind of determine when how and what that might look like,” the official added. 

Not everyone is happy with the agreement, including House Armed Service Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who on Thursday worried about the impact the deal would have on U.S. national security. 

“There seems to be no strategic military advantage to this anticipated decision. Withdrawing from Iraq in this way would benefit and embolden Iran and ISIS. I am deeply concerned about the impacts such a decision would have on our national security,” Rogers wrote on X.

ISIS attacks in Syria and Iraq still continue into this year — the group so far claims 153 attacks in the first half of 2024 — with U.S. special operations forces and Iraqi troops conducting several joint strikes against the militants.