The United States ended its occupation of Iraq on June 28, 2004, when Coalition Provisional Authority Director L. Paul Bremer met with Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, President Ghazi al-Yawar, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Chief Justice Mahdi Mahmoud. ” ‘The task of the Coalition Provisional Authority will end on the twenty-eighth of June, and at this time, the occupation will end and the interim Iraqi government will assume complete sovereignty on behalf of the Iraqi people,’ he [Bremer] said. ‘We welcome the steps of Iraq toward assuming its legitimate role among all free countries of the world.’ When Bremer had finished, he turned to Allawi and al-Yawar. ‘You are ready now for sovereignty,’ he declared.”
– Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Page 291