President Trump announced that the last American forces are leaving Iraq, in remarks carried by C-SPAN.
"I'm pleased to announce that the last American forces are leaving Iraq," Trump said, according to the C-SPAN transcript.
This is a great day for America.
This follows our earlier coverage of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's speech to military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico. CBS reported that Hegseth said he is cutting 20 percent of generals and admirals, and that the military is seven months into a war with Iran. That is a separate event from this announcement.
Trump blamed "very bad decision making" for getting the US "involved in this quagmire in the first place." He said the quagmire lasted "many many years." Then he added: "But soon that part of history will be over."
Note the "soon." The transcript contains no troop numbers, no dates and no timeline for the exit. It is an announcement without a schedule.
A separate post tagged #Trump carries a shorter version of the message: "We're getting the hell out of" Iraq. The post is cut off in the packet, and it does not say where the line came from.
Trump then spent the rest of his remarks on Iraq's new prime minister. The C-SPAN transcript renders the name as "Ali al- Zadi," and we can't confirm that spelling from the packet. Trump called him a "fantastic guy" and a "friend of mine."
Trump says he supported the man "from the very beginning" and endorsed him when "he wasn't given even a chance." He says the prime minister won "in a virtual landslide" over "somebody that was not a good person in my opinion." Those are Trump's claims. Nothing in the packet backs up the landslide, the endorsement's role or the opponent's character.
The plain version: a president is declaring a long war chapter closed while giving you nothing to check the claim against.
Trump's own deadline is "soon." The packet does not say when that is.