00:00from a government but I wanted to announce something that I'm also very
00:05proud of today I'm pleased to announce that the last American forces are leaving
00:10Iraq it's been a long time with very bad decision-making that got us involved in
00:23this quagmire in the first place it was a quagmire many many years it lasted
00:29but soon that part of history will be over this is a great day for America and
00:36importantly we leave with Iraq having a wonderful new Prime Minister Ali al-zaidi
00:44fantastic guy friend of mine and somebody I supported from the very
00:50beginning and I fully endorsed he was running for election he wasn't given even
00:55a chance and I endorsed him in politic form a little bit and he ended up
01:00winning in a virtual landslide beating somebody that was not a good person in
01:04my opinion so I'm very proud of him and hopefully he's going to do a fantastic
01:09job but he won the election and it was very unexpected it was a very big thing
01:15and he did so in landslide order launched in 2003 under the presidency of George W
01:25Bush and continued under the administration of Barack Hussein Obama have
01:31you heard of him in 2014 and then further continued under sleepy Joe Biden
01:41operation inherent resolve which is what they called it ends in 2026 under the
01:48leadership of President Donald J Trump we get the hell out of there so this day
01:55is a victory for the United States it's a victory for Iraq and a decisive victory
02:00over Isis which has been completely decimated which is the reason we went in
02:05there in the first place I decimated them and took them out in my first
02:11administration so I don't know what took them so long to be making the
02:15announcement that I'm making today but it was all about Isis at the time should
02:20have never been allowed to form it did form we took it out others weren't able to
02:24do so but that's just a very big thing and just to go on just a little bit about
02:30it I have to make some comparisons unlike Afghanistan where much military
02:37equipment and everything else was left behind and 13 warriors lie dead I know
02:43the families of those incredible young people got to know them very well over
02:48the last couple of years what happened to those to their children should never
02:52have been allowed to happen with many badly wounded so many badly 48 were so
02:58badly wounded they never get mentioned and I mention them all the time badly
03:01wounded no legs in some cases arms face this orderly departure of coalition
03:08forces and equipment from herbal airbase marks the end of a very expensive
03:14excursion into hell and again we took all of our equipment I said take a little
03:21longer take everyone we left all of the equipment of you remember in
03:26Afghanistan everything was left behind we we left I said I want every screw
03:30taken if there's a screw lying on the ground take it if we have a canvas tent
03:36take it we took everything I said a clear mission gave our commanders the tools to
03:42finish it and refused to let a temporary presence become a permanent one a lot of
03:48people wanted us to be permanently there I had a choice to stay or to leave and felt
03:53without question that it was time for America to go home Prime Minister Prime
04:02Minister El Zaydi is outstanding and will hopefully be able to handle things very
04:07well we came to fight a caliphate and there is no longer a caliphate so we are
04:13going home indeed now as a comparison we have been in that war for 23 years
04:23lost more than 4,500 great American soldiers and had over 31,000 injured some
04:32very badly plus hundreds of civilian contractors were killed so think of
04:38that 23 years 4,500 dead soldiers 31,000 badly injured and that doesn't
04:47include contractors that were many killed by comparison in our war with Venezuela some a
04:57place you're very familiar with by the way did we do a good job in Venezuela
