Updated on
Summary
U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein. Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a victory. One drove a motorcycle with party streamers on it; another, a Humvee with a garland of plastic roses on the grill. U.S. combat troops must pull out of Iraq's urban centers by midnight on Tuesday under a bilateral security pact that also requires all troops to leave the country by 2012. All had left the capital by Monday afternoon, Major-General in Staff, Abboud Qanbar, head of Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, told media. Another Iraqi official who would not be named said some units in cities outside Baghdad would leave at the last minute. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said 30 bases remained to be handed over. There are still some 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
