Print edition: 
So the Iraq war finally is ending with a fragile agreement and withdrawal of the remaining 43,000 troops nearly nine years, billions of dollars and 4,500 casualties after President Bush’s “mission accomplished” moment. Worries remain, but it’s time to end this war, which didn’t go according to plan but will leave Iraq free of a dictatorship and positioned for a more stable future.
Even so, GOP presidential candidates and some other partisans are finding fault with President Obama’s decision to have all U.S. troops home for the holidays. Some of the concerns are well-founded, starting with Iran’s manipulation of the political process in Baghdad and sponsorship of militias in Iraq, and the tense situation on the Turkish border.
But the December 2011 pullout serves a timetable of the Bush administration as it reflects polling showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose the war.
And it’s hard to see the investment of more U.S. blood and treasure in Iraq as warranted, especially with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other leaders ready to accept responsibility for their nation.
Though a longer, larger peacekeeping presence in the country might have been a valuable safeguard, the U.S. will continue to have oversight through its large embassy, 4,000 to 5,000 private security contractors, and ongoing diplomatic efforts throughout the region. Plus, the world will be watching to ensure the Iraqis don’t lose this opportunity to live freely and democratically, under a system that respects human rights and the rule of law.
The sacrifices of Kansans and all Americans on what turned out to be an unusually confounding and deadly battleground cannot be quantified — and must never be forgotten. Forty-seven Kansans were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom from April 2003 to May 2010, giving their lives to the cause of ending Saddam Hussein’s bloody reign and countering terrorists and insurgents.
Post-Iraq, Americans also should remember and heed the point that then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates made in February — that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as Gen. MacArthur so delicately put it.”
Whatever one’s view of how the Iraq war is ending, there should be little disagreement that, as Obama said Friday, “after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build . . . is our own.”
