Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Declares Iraq War Officially Over

After nearly nine years, one trillion dollars, 4,500 American lives and 30,000 more wounded, the war in Iraq has officially come to a close today. Of the 4,000 troops still in Iraq, (down from 70,000) virtually all we be home in time for Christmas.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta remarked on the sacrifices made by so many servicemen and women and their families: "To be sure, the cost was high. In blood and treasure for the United States and also for the Iraqi people. But those lives have not been lost in vain. They gave birth to an independent, free and sovereign Iraq."