and it's been crossing this border for over three hours when the last vehicle in this long line crossing that border we will admit all requirement to remove all military service members from iraq well before the december thirty fierce bureaucratic opposition from the pentagon and from some of his rivals for the democratic nomination of is republican rivals that in the past and it's also i think a victory for sovereignty for the iraqi people you know a few years ago five or six years ago their occupation limit was a new u s military presence while iraq your prime ministership was four  and the pentagon always gave statements contradicting with the white house's plan actually the pentagon continues to attempt to leave trainers in iraq or leave you know thousands of troops executive order many many attempts to continue the us military involvement but overall i think the reason why the us will end up withdrawing the last two a soldier from iraq will happen because of of public opinion demanding u s withdrawal since the beginning of the u s war on iraq in two thousand and three that one thing has been consistent from very shortly after we invaded up until today there has been one consistent factor which is the sentiment of iraqis regardless of how we choose to categorize them has been unified in one area that they wished from the start for the u s to leave poll after poll has shown that approximately somewhere between seventy and eighty percent of iraqis wanted the us out  employees in five different sites that the state department will maintain at all and this includes the huge embassy in the green zone the largest embassy in the history of humankind if i could be proved wrong but i try in my work my research my writing to stay with the facts that i know i'm not donald rumsfeld rumsfeld i don't involve that one hundred seventy americans will be left to guard the embassy soldiers and somewhere between five and fifteen thousand private contractors will be there  i don't think we're entirely clear but it seems very unlikely that they'll be a base i think there will be ongoing negotiations about the bilateral relationship after the troops leave it'll be a sovereign state to sovereign state so who knows some people think the whole issue the whole moral issue apparently is whether  zero americans are left in iraq was iraq capabilities well i would advise them to pay attention to that but not make it the only issue there are americans in moscow there are americans on bases in the philippines but it's not unusual to leave a very large contingent after a war look at the americans in germany and japan they shouldn't be there but but do we really think germany is a vassal state a subordinate state to the united states because we have a base there so i think in general  the war's over and people have a hard time dealing with it and they're there they're perhaps a little too paranoid about whether whether they'll be zero americans remaining i think the fact that we have pulled out the vast majority of our troops from iraq and really left this more of a small more agile presence in the country is really to the benefit of the us because  it's it's an occupation without an occupation it's control without a huge cost to us and we are able to more easily influence policy without all of the negativity  and of having an actual military force in the country or a large military force in the country but i do not believe the fact that we pulled out the vast majority of our troops of our military presence necessarily means that we have  to occupy the country i believe that we are still very much in control of iraqi policy i believe we are very much in control of what iraq does and does not do and  occupation of iraq is of course the largest embassy in the world the largest u s embassy in the world the largest embassy of any country ever built in the history of man remains an iraq that embassy in and of itself is a huge presence it has roughly eight thousand employees it has and all the support that they need and it is really  more or less viewed as the u s command really of the iraqi government that it is symbolic of the fact that the u s still a very large  extent controls what happens in iraq and that the iraqi government really is not sovereign is not independent and that iraq itself is not a sovereign independent country here in the u s that is a controversy as well because the st it's harder to end a war than begin one leave everything that american troops have done in iraq all the fighting all the dying the bleeding and the building and the training and the partnerin all of it has led to this moment of success iraq's not a perfect place it has many challenges ahead but we're leaving behind a sovereign stable and self reliant iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people we're building a new partnership between our nation the us and pulling out the troops has had to put somewhat of a positive spin on on what the last nine years have meant in iraq and the fact that the dictator was removed of course is billed as a positive development the fact that iraq has had elections is billed as the implementation of democracy in the country and there has really been very little said about the destruction that has been brought to the country the infrastructure of iraq has been completely destroyed the education system has been destroyed the healthcare system has been destroyed roads bridges hospitals  the electrical grid water purification all of those things are not what they were nine years ago all of those things have declined so when you look at it in those terms in terms of what the s adventure in iraq has meant to the people of iraq by no stretch of the imagination can it be viewed as a positive thing what we have done to that country the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of iraqis are receiving a substandard education and education that is by no means on the level that it was before we went in proximately eighty percent of iraqis don't have regular consistent access electricity or to clean drinking water that was not the case before we went in iraq was a functioning country it had a vibrant economy had a vibrant culture it had one of the best educational systems in the region and all of those things are gone beyond that beyond the destruction to the infrastructure of iraq what you have as the destruction of an entire generation but i think top of the list of the reasons why the u s went to war in iraq to start with the us told us to invade iraq not a poor nation was not always because of iraq's natural resources and because of iraq's  for you know education or the very basic services that are used to provide to its citizens are lacking these things but one of the reasons why it was the us went to iraq was definitely to attempt controlling iraq's oil attempt controlling who has access to iraq's oil what do we know about oil well we know that  of the oil industry and the republican establishment it's not hard to understand what they're talking about quote the united states should encourage investment in iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies the united states should assist iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise and so on and so on so  that was part of the agenda i don't think it drove the agenda but i think it's part of the agenda and the the west of oil companies are back bidding but as to the actual law that the bush administration and the cons were pushing with all their might it's never passed the iraqi parliament it's it remains paralyzed  in disputes i think over the the control of it first of all and the royalties so i think it would be a big mistake to have a kind of  time will tell what benefits u s corporations will reap from from our key patient of iraq but the fact of the matter is that the us has absolutely pushed for and gained  iraqi change in position in terms of its view of its oil so there has been this pressure on the iraqi government to commercialize the oil industry more and more to permit western oil companies energy companies to obtain contracts for the long term control of iraqi oil but more sadly is the fact that there has been such a level of corruption inserted into the oil industry in iraq to the point where the vast majority of iraqis are not seeing the benefit of their wealth so as far as i'm concerned i'm done this war's over i wish everybody well because i drive a car too and i hope that iraq will find other sources of revenue than international oil markets but i think we knew from the beginning  somebody was going to get the oil and the question was the control and how much the iraqis were going to get out of it and the war did not settle that question to paraphrase ronald reagan if iraqis were asked are you better off today than you were in two thousand and three prior to the us invasion and occupation the vast majority of iraqis would say no they are not better off today that is not because they are not happy to be rid of saddam hussein that is it at all it is because what replaced saddam hussein was not a thoughtful strategy or implementation of democratic rule that replaced saddam hussein has been to a large extent anar so it's a shaky country but there won't be divisions imposed or instigated from the outside i think that's in favor of iraqi sovereignty yes the iranians will be on the side of the shia yes the saudis will be on the side of the sony's i don't know where the americans would be i thought we were friends of the saudis because of oil but we installed an anti saudi regime i thought we were enemies of iran but we installed a  you figure this is part of the lessons of the war the craziness of the logic of the war that we have to engage in discussing and debating in the days ahead but i think  the stabilizing of iraq and the healing of iraq is something that most americans can agree on most the nato countries can agree on most of the countries in the middle east  want to play a role we