WASHINGTON — America’s long and deeply unpopular war in Iraq will be over by year’s end and all U.S. troops “”will definitely be home for the holidays,” President Barack Obama declared Friday. Stretching more than eight years, the war cost the United States heavily: More than 4,400 members of the military have been killed, and more than 32,000 have been wounded.
WASHINGTON — Large new cuts in defense spending would “terribly weaken” U.S. national security, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday as he and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used a rare joint interview to argue that the nation cannot afford to keep playing partisan chicken with its finances. Panetta expressed optimism about progress by American-led forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan and by NATO forces in support of anti-government rebels in Libya. He cited those conflicts as examples of why severe cuts to spending on defense and diplomacy would be dangerous.