[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 22]
[Senate]
[Pages 30540-30541]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              WAR IN IRAQ

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the Senate has spent little time in 
recent weeks discussing Iraq, but we cannot ignore the latest grim news 
from this misguided war. The Associated Press reported this week that 
2007 is now the deadliest year in Iraq for U.S. troops--even though we 
still have almost 2 months of this year remaining. I will ask that the 
article be printed in the Record.
  According to a recent Associated Press count at least 3,858 Americans 
have been killed and 28,385 Americans have been wounded in Iraq. We are 
fast approaching two very grim milestones--4,000 killed and 30,000 
casualties. We should stop and consider the implications of these 
numbers. I grieve for those who are lost and wounded, and I am all the 
more determined that no more of our brave men and women should be 
killed in a war that has no end in sight and is not making our country 
safer.
  Instead of acknowledging that these sad milestones are indications of 
a failed policy, the administration is once again digging it in heels. 
Lately, it has been talking about the recent decline in U.S. deaths as 
a justification for continuing its open-ended military policies in 
Iraq.
  The American people are not fooled by these claims of success. They 
know all too well that the President's policies are simply buying time, 
and they continue to reject them. A recent ABC News/Washington Post 
poll illustrates that a majority of Americans are still calling for a 
change of course in Iraq. 59 percent of Americans think we're not 
making significant progress in Iraq and 6 out of 10 that's 60 percent 
of Americans want the level of U.S. forces reduced. And yet, the 
President ignores the wishes of the public, offering a small, token 
drawdown of forces in the near future but no timeline as to when 
significant numbers of troops will come home.
  If the goal of the surge was to provide a window for political 
reconciliation, as the President outlined last January, victory remains 
elusive. Meanwhile, Al-Qaida has reconstituted and strengthened itself 
along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region at the same time while we 
have been focused on fighting a war in Iraq. The President likes to say 
that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror instead of fixing 
all his attention on Iraq, he needs to address what is happening 
hundreds of miles to the east.
  Again and again, the American people have once again voiced their 
opinion that this war makes no sense and that they expect us uphold our 
congressional responsibilities and use our power to end it. It is bad 
enough to have the President disregard the American people by 
escalating our involvement in Iraq. Despite the efforts of Democratic 
leaders, Congress is also ignoring the will of the American people.
  And so I urge my colleagues not to allow Iraq to remain on the 
congressional backburner. We cannot say we've done everything possible 
to end the war--we cannot say we are acting on our constituents' top 
concern--when we are not discussing, not debating, and certainly not 
voting on Iraq.
  We cannot afford to sideline this critical issue at a time when we 
are close to reaching 4,000 American men and women killed and 30,000 
wounded in a misguided, never-ending war. It is a war that will 
continue through the waning days of this administration unless we 
summon our congressional power to end it. It is a war that we cannot 
sit back and doing nothing about. It is a war that has cost over half 
trillion dollars, stretched our military to the breaking point, and 
made us less safe. It is an unacceptable war.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article from the 
Associated press to which I referred be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

AP: Deadliest Year for U.S. in Iraq--Military Announces Deaths of Five 
               U.S. Soldiers, Raising Year's Total to 852

       Baghdad.--Five more U.S. troops were killed in Iraq, the 
     military said Tuesday--making 2007 the deadliest year for 
     American forces in Iraq, according to an Associated Press 
     count.
       At least 852 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq so 
     far this year--the highest annual toll since the war began in 
     March 2003, according to AP figures. Some 850 troops died in 
     2004.
       The grim milestone passed despite a sharp drop in U.S. and 
     Iraqi deaths here in recent months, after a 30,000-strong 
     U.S. force buildup.


                              Deadly IEDs

       The five U.S. soldiers died Monday in two separate attacks, 
     Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the Multi-National 
     Force-Iraq's communications division, told reporters Tuesday. 
     ``We lost five soldiers yesterday in two unfortunate 
     incidents, both involving IEDs,'' he said, using the 
     military's shorthand for improvised explosive devices--
     roadside bombs.
       Their deaths brought to at least 3,855 the number of U.S. 
     troops who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war, 
     according to an AP count. The figure includes eight civilians 
     working for the military.
       At least 852 American military members died in Iraq in 
     2007, compared with 850 troops in 2004. That year saw mostly 
     larger, more conventional battles like the campaign to 
     cleanse Fallujah of Sunni militants in November, and U.S. 
     clashes with Shiite militiamen in the sect's holy city of 
     Najaf in August.


                    Widening reach of U.S. military

       But the American military in Iraq reached its highest troop 
     levels in Iraq this year--165,000. Moreover, the military's 
     decision to send soldiers out of large bases and into Iraqi 
     communities means more troops have seen more ``contact with 
     enemy forces'' than ever before, said Maj. Winfield 
     Danielson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
       ``It's due to the troop surge, which allowed us to go into 
     areas that were previously safe havens for insurgents,'' 
     Danielson told the AP on Sunday. ``Having more soldiers, and 
     having them out in the communities, certainly contributes to 
     our casualties.''
       Last spring, U.S. platoons took up positions--often in 
     abandoned houses or in muddy, half-collapsed police 
     stations--at the heart of neighborhoods across Baghdad and 
     nearby communities.
       The move was part of President Bush's new strategy to drive 
     al-Qaida from the capital.
       It was the first time many residents had seen U.S. troops 
     up close, rather than whizzing by in armored convoys en route 
     to huge bases that house thousands of troops. And it was the 
     first time many U.S. troops went to bed each night outside 
     those fortresses, to the sounds of Iraqi life: gunfire, the 
     roar of helicopters overhead and an occasional explosion.
       The move has worked, U.S. officials say. Increasingly, the 
     sounds of Baghdad include children playing on the streets.
       ``It's allowed Iraqi civilians to get more comfortable with 
     U.S. forces--increasing the number of tips we get from Iraqi 
     citizens,'' Danielson said. ``That leads us to insurgent 
     leaders and cells, and cleaning those up has led to a decline 
     in violence over the past couple months.''
       Death tolls for Americans and Iraqis have fallen 
     dramatically in recent months, as have the number of 
     bombings, shootings and other violence.
       At least 1,023 Iraqi civilians died in September; in 
     October, that figure was just 875. The number of U.S. troop 
     deaths dropped from 65 to 36 in the same period, according to 
     statistics kept by the AP. That's the lowest monthly toll of 
     American deaths this year.
       On average, 56 Iraqis--civilians and security forces have 
     died each day so far in 2007, according to the AP count.


                           Mass grave located

       Meantime, Iraqi troops discovered 22 bodies in a mass grave 
     in the Lake Tharthar area northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. 
     military also said Tuesday. The bodies were found during a 
     joint operation Saturday.
       It was the second mass grave found in the area in less than 
     a month.
       Meanwhile, the United States said it planned to release 
     nine Iranian prisoners in the coming days, including two 
     captured when U.S. troops stormed an Iranian government 
     office in Irbil last January. The office

[[Page 30541]]

     was shut after the raid, but it reopened as an Iranian 
     consulate on Tuesday, Iraqi and Iranian officials said.


                    Gates says Iran fulfills pledge

       A military spokesman said Iran appears to have kept its 
     promise to stop the flow into Iraq of bomb-making materials 
     and other weaponry that Washington says has inflamed 
     insurgent violence and caused many American troop casualties.
       U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that 
     Iran had made such assurances to the Iraqi government.
       ``It's our best judgment that these particular EFPs . . . 
     in recent large cache finds do not appear to have arrived 
     here in Iraq after those pledges were made,'' Smith said.
       Among the weapons Washington has accused Iran of supplying 
     to Iraqi insurgents are EFPs, or explosively formed 
     projectiles. They fire a slug of molten metal capable of 
     penetrating even the most heavily armored military vehicles, 
     and thus are more deadly than other roadside bombs.
       The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, 
     said last week that there had been a sharp decline in the 
     number of EFPs found in Iraq in the last three months. At the 
     time, he and Gates both said it was too early to tell whether 
     the trend would hold, and whether it could be attributed to 
     action by Iranian authorities. Iran publicly denies that it 
     has sent weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq.

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