Troops Withdraw from Iraqi Cities

Last December, President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki affirmed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and Iraq. Some may remember this as infamous shoe-throwing press conference. The SOFA had been a work long in progress seeking to establish a balance of withdrawal for troops and security for Iraqi citizens. Now, as the deadline for troops to pull out from major Iraqi cities draws to a close, the day was heralded with celebration and of course, renewed violence. In the past ten days, hundreds of Iraqi citizens have been killed in bombings around the country. As such, the withdrawal did not come without sentiments of trepidation, “Without the Americans, we were afraid of each other. And now that the Americans are leaving, we will be more afraid. We knew the Americans were holding them back, so now I don’t know what’s going to happen,” quoted a local Iraqi woman from Baghdad. The remaining 130,000 Soldiers in Iraq must have local approval from the government in order to operate within city confines and now largely exist only to support Iraqi troops and police.