Almost two weeks ahead of President Obama’s Aug. 31 deadline, the last American combat brigade started to leave Iraq, almost seven and a half years after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Their departure marks the end of combat operations in the country and a shift in the “American role in the war from the Pentagon to the State Department, which faces a potentially unprecedented task,” the Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday. The new U.S. mission, Operation New Dawn, takes effect Sept. 1.
“This is not like a light switch, where one day you are doing combat operations and the next day you are doing stability operations,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a news release posted on the Defense Department Web site. “It has been a transition that has taken place gradually over time.”
What do you think about the end of U.S. military’s combat role in Iraq and a shift to a civilian-led effort?
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