US to reduce troops in Iraq to 2,500 by January 15: Pentagon

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The United States will reduce its troops in Iraq to 2,500 by January 15, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller said on Tuesday. 

The decision was announced in a press conference at the Pentagon, during which Miller also said troops will be reduced to the same level in Afghanistan. 

The withdrawals “do not equate to a change in US policy or objectives,” Miller said, thanking Baghdad and Kabul which he says now carry the “bulk of the weight” in “securing their homelands.”

Washington has scaled down its presence in Iraq in recent months, citing the coronavirus pandemic, Iraqi forces’ success in fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) and security concerns after several waves of rocket attacks.  

It currently has 3,000 troops in the country.

Washington has previously threatened to withdraw all troops and close its Baghdad embassy if the Iraqi government fails to reign in Iran-backed militias, who have repeatedly targeted the embassy and Iraqi military bases hosting US-led coalition troops, as well as coalition-contracted convoys. 

Rockets targeted the embassy just an hour after Tuesday's announcement, according to AFP. 

Four rockets landed in the vicinity of the Green Zone, home to foreign missions, Iraq's Security Media Cell said. 

US forces have come under repeated attack since Washington’s assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a January airstrike, also killing Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, the Iraqi deputy of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, Hashd al-Shaabi).  

The US will respond to attempts to interfere in the withdrawals, Miller said. 

 “If the forces of terror, instability, division and hate begin a deliberate campaign to disrupt our efforts, we stand ready to apply the capabilities required to thwart them,” added the defense secretary.

Miller called on troops to “come home” in a memo published on Saturday. 

“We are not a people of perpetual war — it is the antithesis of everything for which we stand for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end,” he wrote.

“We met the challenge; we gave it our all. Now, it’s time to come home.”