US Troops Who Never Left Iraq Are Not Leaving Iraq

US Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey said today that more US military forces may be needed to counter what he called “threats to Iraq's stability, [and they] will remain in 2012." The prospects of a longer US military stay in Iraq contradict the clauses of a 2008 agreement between Baghdad and Washington. The agreement established that US combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and that all US forces would be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011. The Iraqi government initially intended to hold a popular vote on the agreement but later succumbed to US bully-tactics and accepted the agreement.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, more than 1 million people have been killed in Iraq, 2.7 million displaced, 3 million children orphaned -- nearly quarter of the country's children -- and the health status of the population has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s.