U.S. military marks end to nearly nine bloody years in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta marked on Thursday the end of the U.S. war in Iraq, with the last American troops withdrawing nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Panetta arrived in Baghdad after saying the United States had given Iraqis the opportunity to succeed, and had achieved its mission of making the country sovereign and independent at ...