US Military Mission In Iraq To End By December 31

Brussels: NATO will wrap up its training mission in Iraq by year-end, its secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said Monday.


"Agreement on the extension of this successful programme did not prove possible despite robust negotiations conducted over several weeks," Xinhua quoted Rasmussen as saying.


Rasmussen said after the training mission, which started in 2004, NATO would continue to strengthen partnership and political relationship with Iraq through the existing framework.


NATO has trained over 15,000 Iraqi soldiers and police and provided over 115 million euros (over $150 million) worth of military equipment.


Iraq's National Security Adviser Falah al-Fayadh said Sunday that NATO was poised to end its training mission as Baghdad refused to grant it legal immunity from prosecution.


Meanwhile press conference at the White house with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by his side, Obama said: "After nearly nine years our war in Iraq ends this month," and American troops are leaving Iraq "with honor and with their heads held high."


"This is a season of homecomings. Military families across America are being reunited for the holidays, the US President declared at the press conference.


Stating that the return of the remaining American troops from Iraq on December 31 would be a "historic moment," Obama said future relations between the two nations would be an "equal partnership based on mutual interest and mutual respect."


Warning other countries not to interfere in Iraq after the US troop withdrawal, Obama said: "Our strong presence in the Middle East endures. And the United States will never waiver in the defense of our allies, our partners and our interests."


"Iraq faces great challenges, but today reflects the impressive progress that Iraqis have made," Obama said, noting that Iraqis were "working" towards building "efficient and independent and transparent" institutions.


Maliki on his part thanked the United States for honoring its commitments in Iraq. Speaking through a translator, Maliki said with US help Iraq had established a democratic political process and created a foreign policy that "does not interfere in the affairs of others and does not allow the others to intervene in its own affairs."


Obama had announced last month that American troops would be pulled out of Iraq by the end of December 2011, signaling an end to nearly nine years of American military presence in Iraq following its 2003 invasion.


The U.S. combat mission in Iraq ended on August 31, 2010, in line with a bilateral security agreement to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country by the end of 2011. It is estimated the war has cost the U.S. more than $800 billion and claimed the lives of about 4,400 American military personnel.


Currently, about 6,000 US soldiers remain in Iraq. At the peak of the conflict, there were more than 165,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.


Although the Obama administration had earlier planned to leave between 3,000 and 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq even after the year-end deadline, such plans were abandoned over Iraq's refusal to grant a measure of immunity to U.S. troops from Iraqi laws while serving in that country.