Obama to Troops: No 'Victory Lap' in Tuesday Night Speech on Iraq

President Obama promised thousands of soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, Tuesday that he won't do a "victory lap'' for fulfilling his promise to end the formal U.S. combat role in Iraq and shrink American forces there to below 50,000.

In his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday evening, Obama told the soldiers he intends to express his "deepest gratitude to military personnel who served in Iraq – and to their families who waited for their return home."

"I'm going to make a speech to the nation tonight, it's not going to be a victory lap. It's not going to be self-congratulatory. There's still a lot of work that we've got to do to make sure that Iraq is an effective partner with us,'' the president said during a lightning visit to Fort Bliss, home of the 1^st Armored Division.

"But the fact of the matter is that because of the extraordinary service that all of you have done, and so many people here at Fort Bliss have done, Iraq has an opportunity to create a better future for itself, and America is more secure," he said.

Barely a month after taking office in January 2009, Obama vowed, if conditions on the ground permitted and if his combat commanders concurred, to end combat operations in Iraq and to bring the troop levels there down to 50,000 – from a high of 171,000 in October 2007.

Recent terrorist attacks in Iraq, including a deadly series of coordinated bombings by Islamist extremists in 13 cities across the country that killed 56 people last week, have raised fears among Iraqis and Americans that the war is not over. Some 47,500 armed U.S. troops remain on duty in Iraq on a variety of missions that include joint patrols and combat missions with Iraqi forces and track-and-snatch operations against Iraqi terrorist targets.

Obama said the work remaining, for troops and American diplomats, is "absolutely critical.''

Given the continued violence and risk to American military personnel in Iraq, critics of the Obama administration have said too many troops are being withdrawn too fast.

The president acknowledged the criticism in his talk at Fort Bliss, but he called for Americans to come together in praise of the troops and their families.

"There are times where, in our country, we've got political disagreements," he said. "And appropriately we have big debates about war and peace. But the one thing we don't argue about is the fact that we've got the finest fighting force in the history of the world," the president said.

The president also referred in his evening speech to the war in Afghanistan, where nearly 100,000 troops are battling a resurgent Taliban.

That fight "is going to be a tough slog,'' Obama told the Fort Bliss troops. "But what I know is that after 9/11, this country was unified in saying we are not going to let something like that happen again. And we are going to go after those who perpetrated that crime, and we are going to make sure that they do not have safe haven.''