President Donald Trump celebrated the completed U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq as a victory. The U.S. military says its forces and equipment have left Erbil Air Base, ending its Iraq mission against the Islamic State. That is a consequential decision. It is not proof that the threat, the risks to Iraqis or the costs of the conflict have been settled.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell has described the departure as the end of a successful 12-year campaign against the Islamic State as an organized military threat. He also says targeted training and intelligence support for Iraqi partners will continue. Congress should require the Pentagon to explain what those commitments involve and how it will judge the withdrawal’s consequences.
What the withdrawal does—and does not—settle
The case for ending the mission is substantial. Iraqi authorities invited the smaller U.S.-led force that returned in 2014 to fight the Islamic State. The group was defeated territorially in Iraq in 2017, though coalition forces remained to fight its remnants. Iraq’s leaders have presented the departure as an assertion of sovereignty. A foreign military presence should not be treated as the default measure of Iraqi security.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey told PBS News that the Islamic State has been defeated and reduced to a few cells. That is the strongest argument for closing the Iraq military mission, not an argument that the remaining cells have disappeared. The Associated Press reports that sleeper cells remain.
The United States and Iraq agreed in 2024 to wind down the coalition mission. Officials can point to the completed departure as evidence that the plan reached its military endpoint. But the Pentagon’s promise of continuing training and intelligence support makes this a change in the relationship, not an end to U.S. involvement. What support will be available, for how long and under what conditions? Those are questions officials should answer publicly, rather than allowing a victory declaration to answer for them.
Listen to the people facing the risks
The Kurdish region’s security concerns are not an argument that U.S. troops must stay indefinitely. They are evidence that a completed withdrawal and a workable security arrangement are different things. The Kurdistan Regional Government’s Peshmerga Ministry expressed concern about the departure without a defense system.
The ministry reported more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks on the Kurdish region during the recent U.S.-Iran conflict, according to the Associated Press. Those attacks are not evidence of an Islamic State resurgence. They do, however, make it necessary to ask what protection Kurdish communities can expect after the withdrawal and whether continuing U.S. cooperation addresses their stated concern.
Another test lies with armed groups outside Iraq’s state forces. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi says his government will continue fighting the Islamic State and ensure that non-state groups no longer hold weapons. But powerful Iran-aligned factions have rejected disarmament or attached conditions to it. The reported deadline has been extended to June 2027.
None of that proves the withdrawal was the wrong decision. It does show why troop departure cannot be counted as a solution to a separate disarmament problem. Former Iraqi deputy ambassador to the United Nations Feisal Amin Al-Istrabadi has questioned Iraq’s ability to secure itself and sustain intelligence cooperation. U.S. officials should explain what they expected the transition to achieve while recognizing that decisions about disarmament belong to Iraq.
Account for a longer conflict
The 12-year anti-Islamic State campaign is only part of the history for which U.S. officials owe an accounting. American forces invaded Iraq in 2003, departed in 2011 and returned in 2014 at Iraqi authorities’ invitation. Ending the later mission does not erase the human cost of the earlier war.
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PBS News cited more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,000 U.S. service members killed in the Iraq conflict. Those figures should not be presented as deaths from the 12-year anti-Islamic State mission alone. Any official account of the costs should distinguish the longer conflict from the mission that has just ended.
The same distinction matters for resources. Rather than treating withdrawal as the end of every obligation, the Pentagon should disclose what its promised training and intelligence support will require. Iraqis deserve to know what security partnership is taking shape; Americans deserve a clear account of the commitments their government is making.
Put the Pentagon’s claims to a public test
Congress should hold a public hearing with Pentagon officials and require a post-withdrawal assessment. It should ask what evidence supports the judgment that the Islamic State is no longer an organized military threat, how officials will track its remaining cells and what continuing support Iraqi partners will receive.
Lawmakers should also demand an answer to the Kurdish region’s stated defense concern and a disclosure of the resources committed after the troop departure. Respecting Iraq’s sovereignty means accepting its authority over its future. It does not relieve U.S. officials of responsibility for explaining the mission they ended and the commitments they chose to keep.
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