Iraqi PM: US forces must leave in 2011

BAGHDAD — The last U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says.

In a two-hour interview published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Maliki said his country's security forces can handle any remaining security threats beyond the mutually agreed year-end pullout date established with the Bush administration in 2008.

"The last American soldier will leave Iraq," he said, according to the Journal. "This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed."

The Journal said it spoke to Maliki in his Baghdad office inside the protected Green Zone.

It was Maliki's first interview since Iraq ended a nine-month election stalemate and seated a new government, allowing the prime minister to begin his second term.

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