“By the end of this month,” Obama will tell the DAV, “we’ll have brought more than 90,000 of our troops home from Iraq since I took office.”
In his speech to the Disabled American Veterans late this AM, Pres Obama will say US combat ops in Iraq will end “on schedule” by Aug 31.
While most public attention these past months has focused on Mr. Obama’s expansive and hotly disputed domestic agenda, the military has quietly been making progress toward the goal that first animated his campaign for the presidency: pulling out of Iraq.
By the end of August, in accordance with the strategy Mr. Obama put in place after taking office, the American force in Iraq will have shrunk to just 50,000 troops, from 144,000. The remaining “advise and assist” brigades will officially focus on supporting and training Iraqi security forces, protecting American personnel and facilities and mounting counterterrorism operations. Those 50,000 troops are due to leave by the end of 2011.
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