We’re actually leaving Iraq

Listen to Dave’s Commentary: We’re actually leaving Iraq

Remember this?

“We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens and then our military forces will leave.”

That was April 10th 2003. I wasn’t always sure that we would actually leave. At one point President Bush said we might have to stay 50 years. Senator McCain said 100. President Obama moved his own deadline.

But as CBS’s Jim Axlerod reported this week, the number of U.S. bases in Iraq, which was once over 500, is down to five, and the troops, which once numbered 170,000?

“There are fewer than 8,000 troops here and that number gets smaller every day as the troop drawdown deadline continues. All U.S. troops will be gone from Iraq by the end of the month.”

For the families of the 4,500 soldiers who died and the Iraq bystanders who died, the war never quite ends.

But the bottom line is we’re really getting out. We’re gonna keep our word. Oh, we’ll leave behind a big embassy and I assume it’ll be bustling with spies. Did I say spies? I think I probably meant information specialists.

But we also leave behind vastly improved water, sewer and electrical systems, and three cell phone carriers with 23 million Iraqi customers, and a kind of political system.

A lot of Americans, including me, thought this war was a mistake. But because we at least tried to rebuild the place and because we’re keeping our word and leaving all those bases, we send a pretty powerful message that we don’t want to be occupiers. No need to come after us with the pepper spray. When a nation asks us to leave, we clean up, and get out.

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