These successes are part of a larger story. After a decade of war, we're turning the page and moving forward, with strength and with confidence. The drawdown in Iraq allowed us to refocus on Afghanistan and achieve major victories against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. As we remove the last of our troops from Iraq, we're beginning to bring our troops home from Afghanistan. To put this in perspective, when I took office, roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in these wars. By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and an increasing number of our troops will continue to come home. As we end these wars, we're focusing on our greatest challenge as a nation - rebuilding our economy and renewing our strength at home. Over the past decade, we spent a trillion dollars on war, borrowed heavily from overseas and invested too little in the greatest source of our national strength - our own people. Now, the nation we need to build is our own.