As of New Year’s day, things have changed in Iraq, with a handover of authority to the Iraqis in Baghdad’s Green Zone and and a fundamental change in the status and role of U.S. forces.

The walls of the majestic Republican Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone have been stripped bare. The vaults that secured American cash and classified documents are gone, and the cement blast walls that protected the front entrance were taken down this week. The U.S. military dining facility inside what was once the American Embassy served its last meal New Year’s Eve.

“This is the end of the world as we know it,” said Sgt. 1st Class Patrick McDonald, 47, who co-authored a guide to historic sites in the Green Zone. “It’s not like everyone is shredding documents and fleeing Saigon. But we are stepping away from a building.”

Saddam Hussein had the palace compound’s main building decorated with giant busts of himself to demonstrate his hold over Iraq. After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the palace came to symbolize the American role in the country, first as the headquarters of the U.S. occupation authority and later the U.S. Embassy. American civilians and troops held “salsa night” dances around the pool behind the palace before retiring to trailers sheathed in sandbags.

When the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, the U.S. returned the palace to the Iraqi government and relinquished formal control over the Green Zone, a heavily fortified six-square-mile enclave on the Tigris River where key U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies are situated.
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The handover is a sign of the shrinking footprint and influence of the United States in a country where it has lost thousands of lives and spent billions of dollars. For many Iraqis, the handover represents a significant step forward in their gradual reassertion of dominion over their own affairs.

“On January 1, we are going to control this,” Adnan Karim, 22, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint at one of the entrances to the Green Zone, said, beaming. “The U.S. will be here just as observers. It’s a matter of pride.”

There’s plenty that can be said about this, but one thing is of the greatest importance and that is: Thank you. Thank you to the U.S. troops who have succeeded in their mission through their hard work, bravery, smarts, and incalculable sacrifice. Thank you also to the troops of other nations who have made their own sacrifices. Thank you to those who have led them.

Undoubtedly, the trouble is not over in Iraq, but this milestone is clearly of massive significance and is one that could never have been predicted with certainty, and one which many very recently believed could not happen in this fashion and on this schedule. One person who believed it could happen is the outgoing U.S. president. One person who, judging by his on-the-record remarks on the matter for the last several years, did not believe it could happen is the incoming U.S. president. I trust at least he is glad that he was wrong, and I hope he has the capacity to learn from his mistakes; that’s something the outgoing president was constantly criticized for supposedly not doing. History will have more to say about all of this and a better perspective from which to say it.

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