Obama: "Troops Will Be Home for the Holidays"

President Obama has just announced that, after eight years, the United States will withdraw almost all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year, leaving only about 150 behind to assist with arms sales (?).

The United States had expected that some of the roughly 40,000 Americans in Iraq would remain there to aid in training and security.

But the two nations were unable to reach a deal on a key issue regarding legal immunity for U.S. troops, a senior U.S. military official with direct knowledge of the discussions told CNN this month.

The United States wanted to retain immunity but the Iraqis refused to agree to that, opening up the prospect of Americans being tried in Iraqi courts and subjected to Iraqi punishment.

The negotiations were strained following WikiLeaks' release of a diplomatic cable that alleged Iraqi civilians, including children, were killed in a 2006 raid by American troops rather than in an airstrike as initially reported by the U.S. military.

Not exactly a stellar end to the conflict, but it was never going to be anything but bad, in one way or another, because it was a clusterfuck from the beginning. In any case, the war is over. The rebuilding continues, and will continue for some time, as Iraqis who survived (and remain) rebuild their country, and the US troops who survived come home and try to rebuild their lives.

There is more I want to say about the end of the Operation Iraqi Liberation, and about its beginning, and about its architects and victims, but now is not the time I will say those things.