June 19, 2014 8:59AM # Mission Accomplished, He Said By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE > Everything that American troops have done in Iraq, all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering — all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq. Yes, that was [President Obama](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/14/remarks-president-and-first-lady-end-war-iraq) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on December 14, 2011. For another perspective, former vice president Dick Cheney [in the Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/articles/dick-cheney-and-liz-cheney-the-collapsing-obama-doctrine-1403046522) Wednesday: > Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. In case there’s any doubt — he means President Obama, not the president who launched the war that [cost](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War) 4,487 American soldiers’ lives, 32,000 Americans wounded, some 100,000 to 500,000 Iraqi deaths, and as much as [$6 trillion](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314). Maybe they should have listened to the Cato Institute back in [2001](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSrusKBbtPM) and [2002](https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/why-united-states-should-not-attack-iraq). ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).