President Trump stood before reporters on Wednesday and delivered the announcement America has waited more than a decade to hear: the last American forces are officially leaving Iraq. "Today, I'm pleased to announce that the last American forces are leaving Iraq," Trump said, calling it "a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated." The withdrawal marks the formal end of Operation Inherent Resolve, the military campaign launched back in 2014 to beat back ISIS after the group seized huge swaths of Iraq and Syria. The final contingent, roughly 1,500 to 2,500 American and coalition personnel, departed Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq, closing out a US military presence that stretched back more than two decades to the 2003 invasion.

Pentagon officials confirmed the pullout was completed without leaving behind a single piece of equipment, framing it as an orderly and deliberate exit rather than a chaotic scramble. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called it the culmination of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat across the region, while Trump took the opportunity to contrast the smooth Iraq departure with the widely criticized 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Responsibility for stamping out remaining ISIS cells and Iran-aligned militias now shifts entirely to the Iraqi government and its security forces, including the Peshmerga in the north. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi joined a ceremony marking the moment, as Trump praised the new Iraqi leadership and declared that the long, costly chapter of the Iraq War was finally closing.