Last U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq
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Market Watch
Christopher Hinton
08/19/2010
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The last U.S. combat brigade left Iraq early Thursday morning, ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline, according to media reports. At its peak, 170,000 U.S. soldiers were stationed in the Middle East country, and there remains just over 50,000 American soldiers today acting as "advisors" to the Iraqi military. The U.S. invaded Iraq in March, 2003 after the Bush administration accused the country of harboring chemical and biological weapons that could be used in a terrorist attack. There were also reports that then-President Saddam Hussein was trying to secure material to make a nuclear weapon. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Altogether the conflict in Iraq killed 4,415 soldiers and wounded more than 30,000. It also killed an estimated 97,000 and 106,000 Iraqi civilians, according to Iraq Body Count, a research organization. Combat operations cost U.S. taxpayers $750 billion through fiscal 2010, according to the National Priorities Project.
