Episode October 1, 2026 9 min 43s

Withdrawal from Iraq

From Letters from an American Heather Cox Richardson

September 30, 2026

After more than two decades, the deaths of countless Iraqi civilians and more than 4,500 US troops, the wounding of more than 30,000 US military personnel, and a cost of more than $2.8 trillion, the US has pulled out the last of its forces from Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq, A small contingent of advisors had remained after the US and Iraq agreed to a withdrawal plan in 2024, At that time, Iran seemed to be on the ropes, but Trump’s war on Iran has strengthened the country’s hand in the region, The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on the belief that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was destabilizing the Middle East, Although Saddam had not been involved in the 9/11 attack, officials from the George W Bush administration pushed the idea that the terrorists were affiliated with Iraq, The administration warned that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction and when Secretary of State Colin Powell warned in a speech at the UN that Iraq had chemical WMDs and the resources to create nuclear weapons, people were convinced it was true. Later the evidence was discredited, but enough countries backed an invasion that in March 2003 American troops invaded with the intention of overthrowing the government, Saddam’s forces crumbled and by May the US had set up a transitional government and Bush had declared “Mission Accomplished,” But it wasn’t, Now the United States is entering the eighth month of a war on Iran that Trump apparently began with the same cowboy mentality as Bush carried into the war in Iraq, And Pete Hegseth is celebrating his transformation of the military and its “patriotic cowboys.”

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