U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is complete

0:00The US military withdrew from Iraq this week, 23 years after its invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, and led to a security vacuum, insurgency, civil war, and the rise of ISIS that kept the US there for two decades. And Piers Jaina Raff, who has reported from Iraq since the 1990s, joins us from Baghdad. Hi, Jane. Hi, Liza. So the Iraqi government declared a national holiday and held celebrations. Tell us about the significance of US forces withdrawing. Well, there weren't a lot of troops left. You know, at the height of the US military presence here, there were 170,000. Recently, that was down to about 1,500. And the US military had left once before in 2011, when it was relatively stable here. Iraq wanted them to leave. But then they invited them back three years later to help fight the militant group ISIS. And that's what they've been doing here until

1:00this week. So Iran had demanded that US forces withdraw from neighboring Iraq. It wasn't happy about having US bases right on its doorstep. What's been the reaction there? Well, Iran has painted it as a victory as have Iran-backed militias, who have been attacking US forces and diplomatic commissions here in Iraq. So there are two big developments here. One is that departure of the US military. And the other is the Iraqi prime minister's promise to President Trump that he'll disarm those militias. That deadline is moved into next year. It's a very tall order. But and this is also really significant. The hardest line militias announced this week that they would halt attacks, apart from shooting at enemy aircraft. Disarming though is a step further. And what's been the reaction among Iraqis? Well, they like the idea, certainly, of foreign troops out for the most part. At the tourist site of Babel on yesterday, we spoke with an Iraqi school

2:02teacher, Ashwa Saoud. She was there with her family. She said, we think it's better for Iraq. It's our country, after all. Are there any worries about the US withdrawal and where that basically leaves Iraq's ability to even defend itself? A lot of worries in the Kurdistan region, the semi-autonomous region of Iraq, which has been hit hard by Iranian attacks. They host opposition bases. They're armed Iranian opposition bases. So there's a lot of uncertainty there and the feeling of betrayal. And we have to remember the US still has a lot of power over Iraq, financially, politically, even down to determining who the prime minister is here. President Trump boasted about that. We spoke with former foreign minister and deputy prime minister Ali Allawi. Among his books is one called the occupation of Iraq, winning the war, losing the peace. Here's his take on the United States.

3:03I mean, I accused of being indifferent and incompetent, indifferent to the outcome, incompetent and managing. I mean, don't get on waiting a country and send your troops in thousands of miles, and then wash your hands with the whole affair like Pontius Spidey. So the US toppling of Saddam Hussein dismantled the Iraqi military and then opened the door for Iran, destroying government institutions here, encouraging staggering levels of corruption. Allawi says that will lead a generational shift to address that. A generational shift. That was NPR's Jaina Raf, who joined us from Baghdad. Thank you. Thank you.