Via MSNBC/AP:

“NEAR THE IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER — The last U.S. combat troops were crossing the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, bringing to a close the active combat phase of a 7½-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.

The final convoy of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., was about to enter Kuwait shortly after 1:30 a.m. (6:30 p.m. Wednesday ET), carrying the last of the 14,000 U.S. combat forces in Iraq, said NBC’s Richard Engel, who has been traveling with the brigade as it moved out this week.

“We won! We won! It’s over! We brought democracy to Iraq!” a soldier shouted as fellow soldiers celebrated their arrival in Kuwait this week.
For Staff Sgt. Heon Hong of Guam, the brigade’s departure, which began over the weekend, marked the end of his third tour of duty in Iraq.

“I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad we’re done with Iraq,” Hong said as his transport arrived this week. Hopefully, I never come back to Iraq.”
Another soldier, Sgt. Devon Scarey of Deltona, Fla., said simply, “It feels awesome.”

Brig. Gen. Nick Tooliatos, deputy commanding general for First Theater Sustainment Command in Kuwait, stood at the border all night saluting each soldier as he or she crossed.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better honor than to greet some soldiers who have done great work for a year fighting our nation’s war, and to just be here and render honors to them and welcome them and thank them for a job well done,” Tooliatos said.

“It’s a historic event,” he said. “In 2003, we rolled across this berm into Iraq, and now as we get ready to transition the security of Iraq to Iraq’s own forces, this is a significant retrograde of a combat unit.”

50,000 advisers remain

The timing of the final departure was a closely held secret, occurring in dramatic fashion two weeks ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline President Barack Obama had set to withdraw combat forces and close Operation Iraqi Freedom, which the U.S.-led multinational coalition began March 20, 2003, in the belief that Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that threatened the West.
In a statement, Obama called the troops’ withdrawal a “milestone in the Iraq war” and said, “I hope you’ll join me in thanking them, and all of our troops and military families, for their service.”

Of course Obamadumbo will take the credit for this although he had called the surge would worsen the conflict, and joined Harry Reid in calling the war effort a failure.

And reiterated that the surge wasn’t working when in fact it was.

This is therefore a victory for the troops those who fought and died and those who survived, and a vindication of George Bush’s effort to democratize Iraq.

If Obama was honest he say - as most of the left would - that they are pissed off the damn thing didn’t blow up and fail. That’s what they politicked on and hoped for, but thank God it didn’t.

Iraq
Iraq War