Pentagon leaders officially end the US military mission in Iraq. Nearly 4,500 US military personnel were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom (March 19, 2003 – Aug. 31, 2010) and the follow-on Operation New Dawn (Aug. 31, 2010 – Dec. 15, 2011) and more than 32,000 were wounded. (The last US troops left Iraq Dec. 18, 2011.)
RTX’s Raytheon unit was able to “significantly” extend the range of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile using mostly software changes in experimental tests last year, expanding the reach and lethality of the standard U.S. dogfighting weapon, company officials said Sept. 15.