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Biden meets Kadhimi to end US mission in Iraq
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nited States President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi on Monday were to seal an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after US troops were sent to the country.
Coupled with Biden's withdrawal of the last American forces in Afghanistan by the end of August, the Democratic president is completing US combat missions in the two wars that then-president George W. Bush began under his watch.
Biden and Kadhimi are to meet in the Oval Office for their first face-to-face talks as part of a strategic dialogue between the US and Iraq.
A statement to be issued after the meeting would announce the end of the US combat mission in Iraq, a senior Biden administration official said.
There are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq focusing on countering the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The US role in Iraq will shift entirely to training and advising the Iraqi military to defend itself.
The shift is not expected to have a major impact since the US has already moved toward focusing on training Iraqi forces.
A US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003 based on charges that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was ousted from power, but such weapons were never found.
In recent years the US mission was dominated by helping defeat IS militants in Iraq and Syria.
"Nobody is going to declare mission accomplished. The goal is the enduring defeat of ISIS," a senior administration official told reporters ahead of Kadhimi's visit.
The reference was reminiscent of the large "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier above where Bush gave a speech declaring major combat operations over in Iraq on May 1, 2003.
"If you look to where we were, where we had Apache helicopters in combat, when we had US special forces doing regular operations, it's a significant evolution. So, by the end of the year, we think we'll be in a good place to really formally move into an advisory and capacity-building role," the official said.
US diplomats and troops in Iraq and Syria were targeted in three rocket and drone attacks earlier this month. Analysts believed the attacks were part of a campaign by Iranian-backed militias.
The senior administration official would not say how many US troops would remain on the ground in Iraq for advising and training.
Kadhimi is seen as friendly to the US and has tried to check the power of Iran-aligned militias. But his government condemned a US air raid against Iran-aligned fighters along its border with Syria in late June, calling it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
The US-Iraqi statement is expected to detail a number of nonmilitary agreements related to health, energy and other matters.
The US planned to provide Iraq with 500,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine under the global COVAX vaccine-sharing program, the senior administration official said.
The US would also provide US$5.2 million to help fund a United Nations’ mission to monitor October elections in Iraq.
