BAGHDAD -- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta marked the end of the U.S. war in Iraq at a highly symbolic ceremony Thursday.
U.S. soldiers rolled up the flag for American forces in Iraq and slipped it into a camouflage-colored sleeve, formally "casing" it, according to Army tradition.
Panetta said veterans of the nearly nine-year conflict can be "secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to cast tyranny aside."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani were invited to the ceremony but did not attend.
Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives in a war that began with a "Shock and Awe" campaign of missiles pounding Baghdad, but later descended into a bloody sectarian struggle between long-oppressed majority Shiites and their former Sunni masters.
"After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real," Panetta added.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
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