Messenger Boy

August 31, 2010

Today is a benchmark for the last U.S. combat brigade to pull out of Iraq, just meeting the September 1, 2010, deadline set by President Barack Obama at the beginning of his term in 2008. Obama has been criticized for mandating this premature troop withdrawl. But he’s set the goal for all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by July 2011, despite the criticism. Opponents say that Iraq is not stable enough for this mass transition yet. They also claim that removing U.S. combat troop presence will leave the region ripe for terrorist activities. NPR reports , in “Not Quite ‘Mission Accomplished,’” about a country on high alert, one that just last week saw more than 60 killed in al Qaeda–claimed bombing deaths. The August 31 announcement of the Obama administration’s troop pullout is a highly anticipated moment for the president, as he seeks to strike a careful balance between encouraging U.S.(and Iraqi) citizens and avoiding the ominous pitfall of President Bush’s 2003 “Mission Accomplished” declaration in Iraq, which marked not a finality but the beginning of a costly ($53 billion) occupation of the torn nation.

Read more from the AP below.