Iran hails expulsion of US occupying forces from Iraq, demands accountability for two decades of crimes
Tehran - BORNA - In a statement issued on Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran called the US withdrawal a vital step toward consolidating Iraq’s national sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.
It said the 23-year tragedy of the US and allied military presence began with Washington’s aggression against Iraq on March 20, 2003, launched under the false pretext of eliminating “weapons of mass destruction.”
The statement recalled the irreparable consequences of that occupation for Iraq and the wider region, such as the killing of more than one million Iraqis, including tens of thousands of innocent women and children; material damage amounting to several hundred billion dollars to Iraq’s civilian, security and governmental infrastructure; environmental destruction; and heinous war crimes, including the torture of Iraqi men and women at Abu Ghraib prison.
It also said the occupation laid the groundwork for Takfiri terrorism and the rise of Daesh in Iraq and neighboring countries.
The ministry paid tribute to the resistance and steadfastness of the Iraqi nation against occupation, terrorism and sectarianism, and stressed that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq must be fully respected.
It noted that the military presence of the United States and its allies across the region has produced nothing but violence, insecurity, division and terrorism.
Commemorating hundreds of thousands of martyrs who fell resisting occupation and terrorism, in particular Martyr Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Martyr Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry underscored the necessity of holding the US government accountable and prosecuting it for the crimes committed and the losses inflicted on the people of Iraq and other countries throughout the occupation.
The statement comes after the Pentagon formally announced the completion of the US military withdrawal from Iraq, ending a presence that began with the 2003 invasion and continued under successive pretexts.
Iranian officials and resistance movements have long maintained that the US departure was the result of the Iraqi nation’s will and the sacrifices of those who confronted the occupation.
The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, falsely claiming that Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction. US-led coalition forces withdrew from Iraq in December 2011, but returned in 2014, using the seizure of large swathes of territory by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group as a pretext for their renewed military presence.
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