Obama stays silent as troops withdraw from Iraq (News Feature)

By Mike McCarthy Aug 19, 2010, 19:17 GMT

Washington - As the final full brigade of US combat troops left Iraq on Thursday, US President Barack Obama kept quiet despite achieving a key milestone in his plan to wind down the American military role in the war.

Just before departing for a 10-day vacation in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, Obama made brief remarks at the White House about the economy but made no mention of the pullout or Iraq. Inquiries made to the White House seeking the president's thoughts or a statement were redirected to the Pentagon.

US officials pointed to the fact that Obama had set August 31 as the deadline for ending the US combat role as perhaps a reason for his silence. They emphasized there are more than 50,000 US troops still in Iraq and that Washington has a long-term commitment to Iraq.

'I don't think anybody has declared the end of the war as far as I know,' Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told MSNBC. 'There is still fighting.'

The 56,000 soldiers remaining will be focused on training Iraqi security forces and participating in counterterrorism operations until they are due to leave at the end of 2011. Morrell said it won't be until the end of this month when the US mission in Iraq transitions from 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' to 'Operation New Dawn.'

The transition involves a shift from a military-led effort to a civilian and diplomatic one. Morrell said that troops will likely be involved in combat even after that deadline passes.

'Counterterrorism will still be part of their mission,' he said. 'So they very well could be in combat situations even after the end of this month.'

John Pike, a national security expert a GlobalSecurity.org, suspects Obama's silence is being dictated by politics, with congressional elections only three months away and Obama's Democrats in danger of at least losing control of the lower House of Representatives.

Obama is avoiding grandiose statements about the withdrawal to deter a backlash from Republicans who supported the war in Iraq, and whose support he needs for conducting the war in Afghanistan, Pike said.

At the same time, he doesn't want to offend Democrats who believed the war in Iraq was unwinnable or validate predecessor George W Bush's decision to invade in March 2003, Pike said.

'I think (the White House) is fearful, apprehensive, that regardless of what they say, they are going to end up offending somebody,' he said.

The White House could also be looking to avoid any steps that could provoke an enemy in Iraq - such as al-Qaeda - which, although severely weakened, remains resilient, according to US military officials.

Just this week, a series of bombings in Iraq have killed dozens of people as part of an uptick in violence in recent months ahead of the pullout.

Bush famously declared in 2003, weeks after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, that 'major combat operations in Iraq have ended,' only to see the country plunge into years of violence that eventually required a massive troop buildup to contain.

Morrell was more guarded, saying there will be difficult days ahead and refused to make any declarations as to whether the war was over.

'I defer to the president, the commander-in-chief on that,' he said on MSNBC. 'Right now, we still have 56,000 forces there. Their mission still involves combat. This is still Operation Iraqi Freedom.'