Russ Feingold: “Last week, as the administration was trying to convince us to stay the latest course in Iraq, it made very little…”

“Last week, as the administration was trying to convince us to stay the latest course in Iraq, it made very little mention of the fact that in every month this year, January through August, substantially more U.S. troops have died in Iraq than in the corresponding month in 2006. It also had little to say about the British survey released last week which found that nearly one in two Baghdad households has lost at least one member to war-related violence and that 22 percent of surveyed households across the nation have endured at least one death. Based on the number of households in Iraq, this could mean that upwards of 1 million civilian deaths have occurred as a result of the war in Iraq. Despite these facts, this administration assures us that violence is decreasing and that the security situation in Iraq is getting better. They tell us success is within reach and that we are closer to attaining our objectives, even though those objectives keep changing-- most recently from supporting a strong central government to a more bottom-up and local approach. Just give us more time, they say, just as they said in 2004 and in 2005 and in 2006. The slogan may be different. We have had 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Stay the Course' and 'The New Way Forward' and now 'Return on Success.' But each time, we are told we are on the right road until, that is, we reach another dead end and then a new slogan is invented to justify our open-ended presence in Iraq.”