U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, 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.
