Obama says all U.S. troops leave Iraq by December 31
By the fall of 2011, the Iraq War had run for eight years and cost nearly 4,500 American lives. Washington was negotiating whether any U.S. troops would stay past the year's end. On October 21, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that the withdrawal would be complete by December 31, under the deadline set in the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement. "The American combat mission in Iraq has ended," he said. The last convoy crossed into Kuwait on December 18…
