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| Soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, returning from a deployment to Taji, Iraq, arrive at the Andrews Joint Base outside Washington D.C., capital of the United States, Aug. 28, 2010. (Xinhua/Zhang Jun) |
BEIJING, Sept. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- President Barack Obama formally announced that "American combat mission in Iraq has ended" in his Oval Office Address at the White House Tuesday or on the evening of August 31.
President Obama focused on the topic of economy throughout his speech. He said it is good to both Iraq and the United States to end the war." We have spend over a trillion US dollars at war" (in the past few years), often financed by borrowing from overseas," and paid a significant price, he said, and he told an American public that it is high time to "turn the page" on the war in Iraq, to readjust resources and invest more in the U.S. domestic economy and maintenance of its long-term competitive power.
The Iraq War was a military campaign that began on March 20, 2003, with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops from the United States and Britain.
Obama noted that more resources will be transfer to Afghanistan and Pakistan; he also said that" our combat mission is ending but our commitment to Iraq's future is not." At the same time, he reiterated that the drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan is invariable as the endless state of war does not comply with American interests.
Official comments in the United States have tried to avoid relating the "end of war operation" to its "victory". According to public opinion analyses, to avoid using the word "victory" is definitely for the fear that people will associate the what former President George W. Bush declared on the "mission accomplished" for Iraq seven and a half years ago, in May 2003, within two months from the launch of the Iraq War, which was followed by a "turmoil" inside Iraq, with the war mire into which the United States sank. Besides, the realistic situation in Iraq today is also very difficult to describe with the word "victory".
Speaking of the strategy, George Bush dispatched troops to Iraq with insufficient evidences in a hope to re-mould a Middle-East political domain and foster a pro-West power, but Iraq remains bogged down in a political crisis to date. And critics predict a possible surge of military attacks with a grave menace to Iraq's security situation in the wake of the U.S. troop drawdown.
