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Last Convoy of American Troops Leaves Iraq

Pool photo by Mario Tama

An American soldier walked last week through Contingency Operating Base Adder, where the last convoy of the militarywithdrawal left early Sunday under cover of darkness.

By TIM ARANGO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTPublished: December 18, 2011

BAGHDAD — The last convoy of American troops drove into Kuwaiton Sunday morning, punctuating the end of the nearly nine-year warin Iraq.

As an indication of the country theUnited States is leaving behind, forsecurity reasons the last soldiers madeno time for goodbyes to Iraqis withwhom they had become acquainted.To keep details of the final trip secretfrom insurgents — or Iraqi securityofficers aligned with militias —interpreters for the last unit to leave the base called localtribal sheiks and government leaders on Saturday morningand conveyed that business would go on as usual, notletting on that all the Americans would soon be gone.

The crossing brought a close to a final troop withdrawal

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Lucas Jackson/Agence France-Presse —Getty Images

United States soldiers received abriefing on Saturday night before theirconvoy, the last of the troopwithdrawal, left Contingency OperatingBase Adder near Nasiriya, Iraq.

Enlarge This Image

Caren Firouz/Reuters

American and Kuwaiti soldiers closedthe border gate on Sunday after theconvoy crossed out of Iraq.

drawn out over weeks of ceremonies in Baghdad andaround Iraq, including a formal if muted flag-foldingceremony on Thursday, as well as visits by Vice PresidentJoseph R. Biden Jr. and Defense Secretary Leon E.Panetta, and a trip to Washington by Prime Minister NuriKamal al-Maliki.

The last troop movement out of Iraq, which included about110 vehicles and 500 soldiers, began in darkness. Around2:30 a.m., the convoy snaked out of Contingency OperatingBase Adder, near the southern city of Nasiriya, and headedtoward the border.

As dawn approached on Sunday, the last trucks began tocross the border into Kuwait at an outpost lighted byfloodlights and secured by barbed wire.

“I just can’t wait to call my wife and kids and let themknow I am safe,” said Sgt. First Class Rodolfo Ruiz justbefore his armored vehicle crossed over the border. “I amreally feeling it now.”

Shortly after enterng Kuwait, Sergeant Ruiz told the men inhis vehicle: “Hey, guys, you made it.”

Then, he ordered the vehicles in his convoy not to flashtheir lights or honk their horns.

Many troops wondered how the Iraqis, whom they hadworked closely with and trained over the past year, wouldreact when they awakened on Sunday to find that theremaining American troops on the base had left withoutsaying anything.

“The Iraqis are going to wake up in the morning, andnobody will be there,” said a soldier who identified himselfonly as Specialist Joseph. He said he had emigrated to theUnited States from Iraq in 2009 and enlisted a year later,and refused to give his full name because he worried for hisfamily’s safety.

The reaction among Iraqis was muted, as it had been forweeks as the Americans packed up. Live images of the lastconvoy arriving in Kuwait were not shown on localtelevision, as they were around the world. Some Iraqis wereunaware on Sunday that the last of the American soldiers— aside from a vestigial force at the embassy — had left.

“I just heard from you that they’ve withdrawn,” MustafaYounis, an auto mechanic in Mosul, said to a reporter.“We’ve been waiting for this day since 2003. When theyinvaded us, we carried our machine guns and went out tofight them. We decided to do suicide operations againstthem. They committed many crimes, and we lost a lot ofthings because of them.”

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Some celebrated even before the final departure. OnSaturday evening, Ahmed Haider, a teacher in the Khadimiya district of Baghdad, took hisfamily out to a restaurant for a meal of pizza and sandwiches to mark the occasion.

“I feel so happy,” he said. “This is the real happiness for all Iraqis, and I do not know whypeople are not making a big deal of it.”

Of course, many Iraqis fear what comes next, and the withdrawal came against thebackdrop of political crisis in Baghdad. A large group of mostly Sunni lawmakersannounced a boycott of Parliament on Saturday in protest of a wave of arrests by theShiite-dominated government that swept up a number of their aides and security guards.

Several guards who work for Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a top Sunni leader, havebeen arrested, and the government is said to be preparing a case against Mr. Hashimi onterrorism charges.

Fearing that insurgents would try to attack the last Americans leaving the country, themilitary treated all convoys like combat missions.

As the armored vehicles drove through the desert, Marine, Navy and Army helicopters andplanes flew overhead, scanning the ground for insurgents and preparing to respond if theconvoys were attacked.

Col. Douglas Crissman, one of the military’s top commanders in southern Iraq, said Fridayin an interview that he planned to be in a Black Hawk helicopter over the convoy withspecial communication equipment.

“It is a little bit weird,” he said, referring to how he had not told his counterparts in theIraqi military when the Americans were leaving. “But the professionals among themunderstand.”

Over the past year, Colonel Crissman and his troops spearheaded the military’s efforts toensure the security of Tampa, the long highway that passes through southern Iraq, whicha majority of convoys passed through on the way out of the country.

“Ninety-five percent of what we have done has been for everyone else,” Colonel Crissmansaid.

Across the highway, the military built relationships with 20 tribal sheiks, paying them toclear the highway of garbage, making it difficult for insurgents to hide roadside bombs inblown-out tires and trash.

Along with keeping the highway clean, the military hoped that the sheiks would helppolice the highway and provide intelligence on militants.

“I can’t possibly be all places at one time,” Colonel Crissman said in an interview in May.“There are real incentives for them to keep the highway safe. Those sheiks we have the bestrelationships with and have kept their highways clear and safe will be the most likely onesto get renewed for the remainder of the year.”

All American troops were legally obligated to leave by the end of the month, but PresidentObama, in announcing in October the end of military operations here, promised thateveryone would be home for the holidays.

Still, the United States will continue to play a role in Iraq. The largest American Embassyin the world is located here, and in the wake of the military departure it is doubling in size— to roughly 16,000 people, most of them contractors. Under the authority of theambassador will be fewer than 200 military personnel, to guard the embassy and oversee

A version of this article appeared in print on December 19, 2011, onpage A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Last Convoy ofAmerican Troops Leaves Iraq, Marking a War’s End.

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the sale of weapons to the Iraqi government.

History’s final judgment on the war, which claimed nearly 4,500 American lives and costalmost $1 trillion, may not be determined for decades.

But as the last troop convoy crossed over, it marked neither victory, nor defeat, but a kindof stalemate — one in which the optimists say violence has been reduced to a level that willallow the country to continue on its lurching path toward stability and democracy, and inwhich the pessimists say the American presence has been a Band-Aid on a festeringwound.

“Things will go worse in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal, on all levels — security, economicsand services,” said Hatem Imam, a businessman in Basra. “We are not ready for this.”

Duraid Adnan contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an employee of The New YorkTimes from Mosul.

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