The Iraq War is rapidly winding down — and so is Hawaii’s lengthy involvement in it.

Maj. Gen. Bernard Champoux, commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and last division-level commander of the war, said that most of the fewer than 16,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines remaining under his control would be out of Iraq "well before Christmas."

The number of Americans in Iraq is plummeting.

In early November there were 33,000 U.S. troops in the country. Champoux, in a teleconference with the Pentagon press corps on Thursday, said that number had dropped to 24,000.

A 2008 security agreement calls for U.S. combat forces to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31.

The 800 Schofield Barracks soldiers who deployed to Iraq in December as part of Champoux’s headquarters are now down to 650, with the first sizeable group — about 200 — expected back in Hawaii tonight.

The Hawaii troop involvement will be recorded as the last Schofield deployment in the nearly 9-year-old war, and the last of Hawaii’s soldiers to return from it.

Champoux and his remaining soldiers will be tasked with putting that last chapter of American involvement in a controversial conflict into perspective.

Iraq had dominated the nation’s — and U.S. military’s — overseas efforts for the better part of a decade.

"If you served as a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine, Iraq’s never been far from your thoughts because you were coming back, you were getting ready to go, you were serving there or you knew people who were serving there," Champoux said in an interview with the Star-Advertiser. "So to see this enormous effort over time, to see the Iraqis step up and be responsible for their own security, for us to be able to advise them in this final phase and then really turn the security over to them — it’s been incredibly rewarding."

The crew of the Pearl Harbor-based destroyer USS Hopper had a hand in that turnover as well.

The Hopper, which returned to Hawaii Nov. 14, served as an "embarkation platform" in the transition of the Iraqi maritime mission back to the government of Iraq during the seven-month deployment, and played a role in the transfer of more than $8.5 billion in Iraqi oil to countries around the world, the Navy said.

Champoux said the remaining Hawaii soldiers will arrive back home in three more waves after today’s return, with Champoux and the last of the bunch ("about 50 of my closest friends" is how he put it) landing shortly before Christmas.

In the meantime, the 505 U.S. bases operating at the height of the troop surge are now collapsed down to nine.

Joint Base Balad north of Baghdad, which at one point housed 36,000 U.S. personnel, was turned over to Iraqi control earlier this month.

The sprawling Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, once the home of U.S. Forces-Iraq and more than 100,000 troops and contractors, is being turned over in phases, with the final U.S. combat force presence expected to be gone by early December.

"We’ve turned over a large portion of it to the Iraqis already," Champoux said. "We turned over our portion of the international airfield to the U.S. State Department."

Before Champoux left Baghdad and headed to Contingency Operating Base Adder at Tallil Airbase near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, he said mess halls and post exchanges were being closed down around him.

"You have a sense of this is what we had hoped for, this is where we wanted to be," Champoux said.

Champoux, who said he has maintained "close day-to-day operational contact with Iraq’s uniformed security forces," also is in charge of security for the north-to-south exodus.

"Maybe the best way to picture it is we’re kind of holding the shoulders open, and the forces are moving through us to Kuwait," he said.

One sticking point has been the oil-producing northern city of Kirkuk, where Arab-Kurdish tensions have long been a concern. Some American troops remain at Kirkuk Air Base, where Kurdish police on Thursday blocked Iraqi army officials from entering the base, The reported.

Champoux said the security situation for the Americans in Iraq "is still demanding."

"Wherever our bases are, we’ve been receiving some indirect fire," he said. Convoys also have been hit by some roadside bombs.

Champoux said the "overwhelming majority" of those attacks have come from Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, a Shia Iranian-backed extremist group.

In addition to criminal activity, Champoux said extremist organizations, some Iranian-backed, will remain a challenge for Iraq.

"I think they’ve done well to combat — with our help, the way we’ve enabled them — to combat a lot of those networks and that capability," he said. "But I believe that … for as long as they are funded, trained and encouraged to operate inside of Iraq, it’s going to be a challenge for the Iraqi security forces."

Schofield soldiers are at COB Adder in the south and in Kuwait to receive departing units.

Champoux said Iraq is a big country, and unless it was possible to view the American exodus with time-lapse photography, "it would be hard to notice the enormity of it. But it is constant and it is steady, and it is day and night. We are moving ourselves and our equipment to Kuwait while we are protecting ourselves."

As the last Schofield soldiers prepare to leave Iraq, probably for the last time ever, 2,600 others with the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade are preparing to deploy to southern Afghanistan in January.

Many have been to Iraq, including Black Hawk helicopter door gunner Spc. Jesus Torres, 27, who was deployed to the country from 2009 to 2010.

"I have friends out there (in Iraq) now, and they are pulling out," said the soldier from San Antonio. "It’s good that we’re finally done with that place, but the war’s never over when it comes to terrorists. There’s always somewhere else."