Obama ignored general's pleas to keep American forces in Iraq

Obama ignored general's pleas to keep American forces in Iraq - Washington Times
The last American commander in Iraq recommended to the Obama administration that 23,000 U.S. troops remain to cement the victory, but no deal was ever reached with Baghdad, and all combat forces went home.
That stalemate has come back to haunt the country as al Qaeda-linked extremists, who had been defeated by 2011, have returned to Iraq in a terrorist campaign to capture huge swaths of territory in northern and western areas.
...Retired ArmyGen. John M. Keane, who advised commanders in Iraq and helped devise the 2007 troop surge, remembers how the U.S. achieved victory by working hand in hand with Iraq’s military to conduct pinpoint strikes.
The effort was so effective that the enemy, al Qaeda in Iraq, stopped sending killers into Iraq because they would be exterminated quickly.
......“As we pulled out of Iraq in 2011, just think of this: 
We had all our intelligence capability there. 
We knew where the enemy was. We were flying drones. 
We’re tracking them. 
We have signals intelligence pouring in, eavesdropping on phone conversations and the rest of it. 
We’re using our counterterrorism forces to bang against these guys. 
We’re passing that information to the Iraqis so their commandos can do the same,” the general said.
After several years of reduced violence in Iraq, the Americans left.