US and Iraq Set September 30 Deadline for Final American Troop Withdrawal

The United States is set to pull its remaining troops out of Iraq by September 30, according to US and Iraqi officials cited by the Associated Press and the Times of India. That closes the book on a military presence that started with the 2003 invasion, ran through a full war, a withdrawal, a return, and a slow drawdown that's now in its final stretch.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi reaffirmed the date this week during a meeting with US Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper, calling September 30 the "fixed and final date" for ending the coalition's military mission against ISIS in Iraq. A US official confirmed the withdrawal timeline but didn't say how many troops are still there or where they're headed next, according to the AP.

How we got here

This didn't happen overnight. More than 170,000 American troops were in Iraq at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. The last combat troops left in 2011. Then ISIS blitzed across Iraq and Syria in 2014, and Baghdad invited US forces back in.

The coalition ended active combat operations in 2021 once ISIS lost its territory, but roughly 2,500 US troops stayed on for training and counterterrorism support. Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind that mission down entirely. Most Iraqi bases were already emptied out last year, leaving a residual US presence concentrated in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Two Kurdish officials told the AP the drawdown of US personnel and equipment from Erbil began roughly three weeks ago. Those Erbil-area bases have taken repeated attacks since the US and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28, which adds real operational risk to a withdrawal that was already going to be complicated.

The militia problem nobody thinks gets solved

Al-Zaidi isn't just pulling US troops out. He's set September 30 as the deadline for Iraq's non-state armed militias to hand over their weapons, arguing they'll have no excuse to stay armed once foreign forces are gone. That's a reasonable argument on paper: if the fight against ISIS is over and the Americans are leaving, why do private armies still need heavy weapons on Iraqi soil?

The AP reports the deadline is unlikely to be met. Some of Iraq's most powerful Iran-backed militias have flatly rejected disarming, and some armed groups have long cited the presence of US troops as a reason for maintaining their arsenals. Al-Zaidi can set all the deadlines he wants. Enforcement is a different question entirely, and Iraq's central government has a long track record of struggling to rein in militias that answer more to Tehran than to Baghdad.

A full US withdrawal removes American leverage and a chunk of the security apparatus that's kept these groups somewhat in check. Whether a hard withdrawal date without a credible disarmament plan in place leaves Iraq more exposed remains an open question.