Leaving Iraq
Frank Crimi in FrontPage Vice President Joe Biden announced the beginning of a new American relationship with Iraq during a surprise visit to Baghdad. With only weeks remaining before American troops are scheduled to withdraw from the country, Biden’s pronouncement comes as sectarian tensions and violence threaten to tear Iraq apart. Biden told reporters at a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the exodus of the remaining 13,000 US troops from eight Iraqi bases at the end of December 2011 marked “a new beginning…that will not only benefit the United States of America and Iraq… it will benefit the region and will benefit the world.” While Biden claimed the new US-Iraqi partnership would “bring stability to the region,” he acknowledged that America’s departure from Iraq would not remove “security concerns.” Nevertheless, Biden was “confident that [the Iraqi government] is fully capable of handling those internal security concerns.” Unfortunately, Biden’s optimism isn’t equally shared by Iraqi Prime Minster Maliki or by American military commanders. While Maliki didn’t address Iraq’s security capabilities at the press conference, his feelings
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