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Published: December 1, 2011
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — A day before the United States turned over this optimistically named military base to Iraqi forces, leaders of both countries marked the end of the Iraq war on Thursday with a solemn commemoration of the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops, held in a garish marble palace built by Saddam Hussein.
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With verses from the Koran and the words of President Harry S. Truman, Iraq’s top officials and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. paid tribute to each other’s soldiers, pledged friendship, and celebrated an orderly departure by the United States that many in both countries would not have predicted even a few years ago.
“The tide of war is receding, and the soul of Baghdad remains, the soul of Iraq remains,” Mr. Biden said to an audience of about 300 American and Iraqi troops. Citing Truman’s speech after Germany surrendered in 1945, he said the end of war was a “solemn but glorious hour.”
Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, said that in throwing off a brutal dictator and freeing its people, Iraq served as a beacon for the political upheavals of the Arab Spring.
“History will record that the liberation of our country was not only an important turning point in Iraq itself,” he said, “but it was an important beginning for the region.”
The ceremony on Thursday was not, strictly speaking, a handover. The war, which has been winding down in phases with the drawdown of troops since 2009, will not end definitively until the last American soldier steps off Iraqi soil in the next few weeks.
Still, the ceremony was freighted with the symbolism of a foreign power leaving, and an occupied country reclaiming its sovereignty. Iraq’s red-white-and-black flags were hung from balconies, unfurling grandly as a military band played the Iraqi national anthem. An Iraqi honor guard, in crimson uniforms, lined the entrance to the palace, which was festooned with yellow and red tinsel, strung on barbed wire.
Mr. Talabani, who bestowed medals on Mr. Biden, the American military commander, Gen. Lloyd Austin III, and ambassadors from other countries that contributed troops to the coalition, thanked President Obama and pledged that Iraq would remain a friend.
The vice president, as he has throughout his visit, portrayed the withdrawal as evidence that the United States keeps its promises. American soldiers, he said peering at those present in the audience, were leaving Iraq, “taking nothing with you but your experience.”
“Because of you,” he said, “and because of the work you have done, we are now able to end this war.”
Mr. Biden addressed the criticisms, leveled by Sen. John McCain and other critics, that the United States was abandoning Iraq to a potentially dangerous fate. He talked of the progress he had seen from his earliest trips here, when, he said, bodies piled up daily in Baghdad’s morgue and driving on its lethal highways was a test of faith.
Now, Mr. Biden insisted, Iraq has well-trained security forces, capable of guarding its borders and putting down challenges from insurgents, as well as a thriving, if unruly, political system.
On Friday, the United States will hand over control of Camp Victory, a sprawling complex that served as military headquarters for much of the war, and was emblematic of its outsized role.
Evidence of America’s new civilian presence abounded. Mr. Biden’s staff and reporters were flown from the huge embassy to Camp Victory in helicopters emblazoned with the State Department’s seal.
Speaking of the criticisms that the United States should have left troops in Iraq longer for security, Mr. Biden said, “In my view, and the president’s view, those arguments not only misunderstand Iraqi politics, but they underestimate the Iraqi people.”
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, for whom the exit of the troops carries particular political significance, expressed thanks to former President George W. Bush for signing the 2008 agreement that set the timetable for the departure and to President Obama for sticking to it. He also issued an oblique warning to Iran not to destabilize Iraq by backing insurgent groups that carry out deadly attacks.
“The withdrawal operation will take away all the slogans that some countries hide behind in order to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq,” Mr. Maliki said.
The choice of Mr. Biden to preside over this leave-taking was apt. In many ways, he embodies the nation’s anguished history with the war. As a senator, he voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, a decision he later said he regretted. In 2007, he opposed the troop surge, declaring that its architect, Gen. David H. Petraeus was “dead, flat wrong.”
In 2005, Mr. Biden wrote a seminal essay, along with Leslie H. Gelb, that called for decentralizing Iraq to give autonomy to its three main ethnic groups: Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs. The proposal was dismissed by the Bush administration, and Mr. Biden complained that it was misconstrued as a plan to partition the country.
Yet Mr. Biden kept at it, turning himself into an avid student of Iraq’s tribal politics. He has traveled here 16 times as a senator and vice president, building relationships that have allowed him to act as a go-between with Iraq’s ethnic leaders. He relishes, for example, analyzing the rivalry between Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, and Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, whom he met later on Thursday.
Iraq is also deeply personal. Mr. Biden’s son, Joseph R. Biden III, known as Beau, was deployed here as a member of the Delaware National Guard in 2008 while his father was running for vice president. He returned in 2009, when Mr. Biden was directing Iraq policy at the White House.
The vice president referred to his son, as well as to the 4,486 Americans who died here. “Fallen angels,” he said, “who made the ultimate sacrifice.” Many others, he added, bear scars from their experience.
“We owe you,” Mr. Biden said, his voice thick with emotion. “We owe you.”
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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — A day before the United States turned over this optimistically named military base to Iraqi forces, leaders of both countries marked the end of the Iraq war on Thursday with a solemn commemoration of the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops, held in a garish marble palace built by Saddam Hussein.
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.
With verses from the Koran and the words of President Harry S. Truman, Iraq’s top officials and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. paid tribute to each other’s soldiers, pledged friendship, and celebrated an orderly departure by the United States that many in both countries would not have predicted even a few years ago.
“The tide of war is receding, and the soul of Baghdad remains, the soul of Iraq remains,” Mr. Biden said to an audience of about 300 American and Iraqi troops. Citing Truman’s speech after Germany surrendered in 1945, he said the end of war was a “solemn but glorious hour.”
Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, said that in throwing off a brutal dictator and freeing its people, Iraq served as a beacon for the political upheavals of the Arab Spring.
“History will record that the liberation of our country was not only an important turning point in Iraq itself,” he said, “but it was an important beginning for the region.”
The ceremony on Thursday was not, strictly speaking, a handover. The war, which has been winding down in phases with the drawdown of troops since 2009, will not end definitively until the last American soldier steps off Iraqi soil in the next few weeks.
Still, the ceremony was freighted with the symbolism of a foreign power leaving, and an occupied country reclaiming its sovereignty. Iraq’s red-white-and-black flags were hung from balconies, unfurling grandly as a military band played the Iraqi national anthem. An Iraqi honor guard, in crimson uniforms, lined the entrance to the palace, which was festooned with yellow and red tinsel, strung on barbed wire.
Mr. Talabani, who bestowed medals on Mr. Biden, the American military commander, Gen. Lloyd Austin III, and ambassadors from other countries that contributed troops to the coalition, thanked President Obama and pledged that Iraq would remain a friend.
The vice president, as he has throughout his visit, portrayed the withdrawal as evidence that the United States keeps its promises. American soldiers, he said peering at those present in the audience, were leaving Iraq, “taking nothing with you but your experience.”
“Because of you,” he said, “and because of the work you have done, we are now able to end this war.”
Mr. Biden addressed the criticisms, leveled by Sen. John McCain and other critics, that the United States was abandoning Iraq to a potentially dangerous fate. He talked of the progress he had seen from his earliest trips here, when, he said, bodies piled up daily in Baghdad’s morgue and driving on its lethal highways was a test of faith.
Now, Mr. Biden insisted, Iraq has well-trained security forces, capable of guarding its borders and putting down challenges from insurgents, as well as a thriving, if unruly, political system.
On Friday, the United States will hand over control of Camp Victory, a sprawling complex that served as military headquarters for much of the war, and was emblematic of its outsized role.
Evidence of America’s new civilian presence abounded. Mr. Biden’s staff and reporters were flown from the huge embassy to Camp Victory in helicopters emblazoned with the State Department’s seal.
Speaking of the criticisms that the United States should have left troops in Iraq longer for security, Mr. Biden said, “In my view, and the president’s view, those arguments not only misunderstand Iraqi politics, but they underestimate the Iraqi people.”
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, for whom the exit of the troops carries particular political significance, expressed thanks to former President George W. Bush for signing the 2008 agreement that set the timetable for the departure and to President Obama for sticking to it. He also issued an oblique warning to Iran not to destabilize Iraq by backing insurgent groups that carry out deadly attacks.
“The withdrawal operation will take away all the slogans that some countries hide behind in order to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq,” Mr. Maliki said.
The choice of Mr. Biden to preside over this leave-taking was apt. In many ways, he embodies the nation’s anguished history with the war. As a senator, he voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, a decision he later said he regretted. In 2007, he opposed the troop surge, declaring that its architect, Gen. David H. Petraeus was “dead, flat wrong.”
In 2005, Mr. Biden wrote a seminal essay, along with Leslie H. Gelb, that called for decentralizing Iraq to give autonomy to its three main ethnic groups: Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs. The proposal was dismissed by the Bush administration, and Mr. Biden complained that it was misconstrued as a plan to partition the country.
Yet Mr. Biden kept at it, turning himself into an avid student of Iraq’s tribal politics. He has traveled here 16 times as a senator and vice president, building relationships that have allowed him to act as a go-between with Iraq’s ethnic leaders. He relishes, for example, analyzing the rivalry between Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, and Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, whom he met later on Thursday.
Iraq is also deeply personal. Mr. Biden’s son, Joseph R. Biden III, known as Beau, was deployed here as a member of the Delaware National Guard in 2008 while his father was running for vice president. He returned in 2009, when Mr. Biden was directing Iraq policy at the White House.
The vice president referred to his son, as well as to the 4,486 Americans who died here. “Fallen angels,” he said, “who made the ultimate sacrifice.” Many others, he added, bear scars from their experience.
“We owe you,” Mr. Biden said, his voice thick with emotion. “We owe you.”
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