U.S. to totally pull out of Iraq by Jan. 1
The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep its troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline.
The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively bring to a close the invasion that the U.S. launched eight years ago, despite ongoing concerns about Iraq's security forces and the potential for instability.
The decision ends months of hand-wringing by U.S. officials over whether to stick to a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline that was set in 2008 or negotiate a new security agreement.
In recent months, Washington had been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand U.S. troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces. A Pentagon spokesman said Saturday that no final decision has been reached about the U.S. training relationship with the Iraqi government.
But a senior Obama administration official in Washington confirmed Saturday that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq except for about 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the American Embassy.
A senior U.S. military official confirmed the departure and said the withdrawal could allow future but limited U.S. military training missions in Iraq if requested.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Sticking point: immunity for troops
Throughout the discussions, the United States has demanded that its troops be granted immunity from Iraqi courts, which Iraq's leaders say they do not have the parliamentary support to push through. The U.S. has refused to stay without it.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said the U.S. remains "committed to keeping our agreement with the Iraqi government to remove all of our troops by the end of this year."
Regardless of whether U.S. troops are in Iraq or not, there will be a massive U.S. diplomatic and paramilitary presence.
The American Embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world, and the U.S. State Department will have offices in Basra, Irbil and Kirkuk as well as other locations around the country where contractors will train Iraqi forces on U.S. military equipment they're purchasing.
About 5,000 private security contractors and personnel will be tasked with helping protect U.S. diplomats and facilities around the country, the State Department has said.
Big team for weapons sales
The U.S. Embassy will still have a handful of U.S. Marines for protection and 157 U.S. military personnel in charge of facilitating weapons sales to Iraq. Those are standard functions at most American embassies around the world and would be considered part of the regular embassy staff.
The U.S. said repeatedly this year it would entertain an offer from the Iraqis to have a small force stay behind, and the Iraqis said they would like American military help. But as the year wore on and the number of U.S. troops that Washington was suggesting could stay behind dropped, it became increasingly clear that a U.S. troop presence was not a sure thing.
The issue of legal protection for the Americans was the deal-breaker.
Iraqis are still angry over incidents such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or Haditha, when U.S. troops killed Iraqi civilians in Anbar province, and want American soldiers subject to Iraqi law.
The United States invaded Iraq on March 17, 2003, claiming that Iraq's then-ruler Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. None were ever found, and subsequent revelations have pointed out how parts of the U.S. intelligence community deceived State Department officials in persuading the government to launch an attack.
The invasion resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians.