WASHINGTON—The Iraq war was declared officially over on Dec. 15 by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a flag-lowering ceremony in the fortified compound at a Baghdad airport. Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops have left Iraq since the pullout began in 2008. All the remaining U.S. military forces were out of the country by Sunday, Dec. 18, ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline.
The support and sacrifice the United States gave to Iraq was enormous by any method of calculation. Nearly 4,500 U.S. service members were killed and about 32,000 wounded in almost nine years of war.
The United States deposed Saddam Hussein’s regime and later fought back a Sunni insurgency supported by al-Qaeda terrorists. The Shi'ites attacked with militias, sectarian killings escalated, and Iraq was in a civil war until the U.S. troop surge brought some stability. Over 1 million personnel were deployed to Iraq. The monetary costs are staggering—exceeding $1 trillion.
Meghan L. O‘Sullivan, former deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, said Dec. 16 on a Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) teleconference that our presence in Iraq acted as “psychological ballast” against undemocratic and sectarian violence. O’Sullivan was a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, and is currently at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.
The United States turned over the reins of government in 2004 to a transitional Iraqi government that led to parliamentary elections in 2005 and a final constitution. After that moment, Washington could do little more than advise on how to create a democracy, respect religious differences, and advance human rights.
