The American flag has been lowered in Baghdad, bringing nearly nine years of US military operations in Iraq to a formal end. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that the dream of an independent Iraq has become a reality, and this is a historic event for both Americans and Iraqis. Some 4,500 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis died in the war, which has cost the US over 1trillion USD.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister al-Shahristani said that the US troops have gone through some difficult years in Iraq that the two countries have had some successes together, some failures, and some misunderstandings.