Iraqi’s Celebrate Sovereignty?

“The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “We are now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty.”

This is a bit of a stretch isn’t it?  Oh sure the troops (but not all) have left the cities of Iraq; but they are just outside the borders of those cities and able to come right back in.  So what is this claim to “Sovereignty”?

Fireworks, not bombings, colored the Baghdad skyline late Monday, and thousands attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs. Loudspeakers at police stations and military checkpoints played recordings of similar tunes throughout the day, as Iraqi military vehicles decorated with flowers and national flags patrolled the capital.

“All of us are happy _ Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds on this day,” Waleed al-Bahadili said as he celebrated at the park. “The Americans harmed and insulted us too much.”

Al-Maliki declared a public holiday and proclaimed June 30 as “National Sovereignty Day.”

Americans HARMED and INSULTED us too much?  Say what!? We’ve lost 4321 precious men and women lives (not counting the 31,000 wounded, some with life long injuries) to FREE them and this is the THANKS we get? With that sort of attitude we should just GET OUT NOW!

The withdrawal, required under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact, marks the first major step toward withdrawing all American forces from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. Obama has said all combat troops will be gone by the end of August 2010.

Despite Tuesday’s formal pullback, some U.S. troops will remain in the cities to train and advise Iraqi forces. U.S. troops will return to the cities only if asked. The U.S. military will continue combat operations in rural areas and near the border, but only with the Iraqi government’s permission.

The U.S. has not said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 U.S. forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.

As usual the whole story is not in the headlines, just the sensationalism part.

What this celebration is all about is, an attempt by both the U.S. and Iraqi leadership to convince the enemy that the U.S. is GONE, so you can quit the fighting and killing now.