Obama to explain the withdrawal of combat troops tonight
President Obama will be making a national address tonight. Before you start whining about missing that rerun of Glee, you should know what Obama will be talking about, because it is sure to be brought up the next morning.
Iraq will be the main focus of President Obama’s speech tonight. During much of Obama’s tenure, he has focused military efforts in Afghanistan while trying to reduce American presence in Iraq. The intent of tonight’s speech is to discuss the combat troop withdrawal in Iraq.1
The important thing to know about this subject is that at 5 p.m. E.T. today, the combat mission in Iraq will officially be over from the American perspective. The battle in Iraq was a complicated one, but for simplicity’s sake, remember that this is the war that started with Bush’s “shock and awe” event in 2003.
Here’s where you don’t want to misunderstand what is happening: while there will technically be no more “combat troops” in Iraq, the U.S. will still be retaining 50,000 “noncombat” troops on the U.S. base in Iraq. Naturally, if for no other reason than their own defense, these noncombat troops will be well trained in combat and will still be training Iraqi troops on certain combat efforts. ForeignPolicy.com summed up tonight’s attempt at transformation best:
“So while the next stage of the Iraq war may be, as Obama described it, a transformation from ‘a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats,’ the actual mission of the remaining troops will stay largely the same: building the capabilities of the Iraqi military and rooting out the extremists.”2
Now that you have some of the facts, read on for more, and if someone starts telling you that America is completely out of Iraq, set them straight. Nothing stirs up a debate better than discussing America’s involvement in other countries.
Read on:
CNN.com – U.S. combat mission in Iraq nears end
RightWeb – The End of the Iraq Combat Mission?
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