As of Aug. 31, Operation Iraqi Freedom will become Operation New Dawn.
U.S. Army soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division race toward the border from Iraq into Kuwait Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010. The soldiers are part of the last combat brigade to leave Iraq as part of the drawdown of U.S. forces. The last of the US combat troops have left Iraq following a seven-and-a-half year stay after the US-led invasion. They are coming back two weeks ahead of the August 31 deadline for withdrawal put in place by President Obama.
The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division are the final troops to leave, which officially ends combat operations that began in March 2003, according to The Guardian.
“Going forward there will still be U.S. combat troops in Iraq and they will sometimes find themselves shooting at the enemy and being shot at,” NPR reports. “Most of the 50,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq will still be trained combat troops. Their ostensible missions will be the training of Iraqis, force protection, counter-terrorism etc.”
Obama told CNN that more than 90,000 U.S. troops have left Iraq in the past 18 months.
New York Times reports that as of Aug. 31, Operation Iraqi Freedom will become Operation New Dawn, with troops serving as trainers for the Iraqi military, a task which many troops have already been doing over the past few months.
"The State Department has asked the U.S. military to leave behind surveillance systems, about 50 bomb-resistant vehicles and a few dozen UH-60 helicopters, a military official said. Though they got a lot of what they wanted, the Pentagon said it could not give them all the helicopters because they are needed in Afghanistan,” CNN reports.
Iraq is still without a functioning government. Electricity and other utilities are not readily available beyond the capital, that of which doesn’t see a steady supply as is. Many news sources including CNN and FOX News report that violence within Iraq appears to be increasing.