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Presence will remain, including the world's biggest american embassy, the state department will keep a staff of 16,000 in the country, including 5,000 in security contractors. richard engel is chief foreign correspondent for nbc news and joins us now from baghdad. rich, thank you so much. >> give us a sense of residual strength in that region. the power we can project into iraq if we have to. >> reporter: not very much, frankly. and i think based on the interviews i've been doing today, this huge presence that is staying behind here could ultimately be a liability. i spoke to a lot of iraqis w...

Will keep a staff of 16,000 in the country, including 5,000 in security contractors. richard engel is chief foreign correspondent for nbc news and joins us now from baghdad. rich, thank you so much. >> give us a sense of residual strength in that region. the power we can project into iraq if we have to. >> reporter: not very much, frankly. and i think based on the interviews i've been doing today, this huge presence that is staying behind here could ultimately be a liability. i spoke to a lot of iraqis who say that they don't believe that u.s. troops are really leaving, that the u.s. embassy a...

Amazing pictures we saw last night. very vulnerable to iran. >> i think that's a bit overmuch to say. it is still a war zan. there are still issues. these are not security contractors. the focus of our efforts from this point on. ing diplomatic development. civilian assistance. >> but what we saw were two language trainers, two diplomats, two women. they say that they are in an armed battle gear, that's just to go through baghdad, not even basra. >> security continues to be of concern. the reality is we set the objective to leave iraq after we have established a level of

Say that they don't believe that u.s. troops are really leaving, that the u.s. embassy and all of its security contractors, 15, 16, 17,000 people is really just a military base by another name. and certain militant groups are certainly going to want to target them. so if the idea is to project power and to maintain influence, you could end up antagonizing a lot of people by doing that. >> but i guess i'm trying to get to the -- in other words, in real terms, we have a lot of power left in that area. you think it may be a vulnerability to hang in there in another form, throw contractors, rather...

Maliki at this point that could prevent him from becoming what you are making the argument that he's becoming, which is sort of a low-grade strong man. >> no, there isn't. one of the things that's a big concern is there is no interior minister. there is no defense minister controlling the army. there is no national security officer. maliki right now is all of those things. so the kind of jobs that might create someone who would have the public standing to run against him, he's running it all. >> you are painting a pretty bleak picture. obviously 17,000 u.s. citizens that are going to be in ira...