Iraq requires more sacrifice: Bush

From correspondents in Washington
October 26, 2005

AS the US military death toll in Iraq reached 2000, President George W. Bush said today the war would require more time and sacrifice, and rejected calls for a US pullout.

"Each loss of life is heartbreaking, and the best way to honour the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and lay the foundation of peace by spreading freedom," Mr Bush said, his voice breaking with emotion as he spoke at a luncheon of military wives at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington.
His remarks came shortly before the Pentagon announced that Staff Sergeant George Alexander Jr, 34, of Killeen, Texas, died at Brooke Army Medical Centre in Texas on Saturday of injuries sustained on October 17 in Samarra, Iraq, when a bomb planted by insurgents detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

This pushed the death toll in a war that began in March 2003 to 2000.

More than 15,000 US troops have also been wounded in combat.

"This war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve," Mr Bush said amid declining public support for the war.

The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we have ever faced."
The US Senate paused for a moment of silence after news that the death toll had reached 2000.

But army Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said the 2000th death was "not a milestone".

"It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives. In some cases, this could also be the creating of news where none really exists," Lt-Col Boylan said.

Lt-Col Boylan said "the true milestones of this war are rarely covered or discussed", including US volunteers to serve in the war and ordinary Iraqis who defied insurgents to vote for a better future.

Falling public support for the war as measured by opinion polls has been one factor pushing down Mr Bush's popularity, and critics have called on him to bring troops home.

Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, in a withering Senate speech, voiced impatience with Mr Bush's stay-the-course message and accused him of ignoring the lessons of the Vietnam War and invading Iraq without evidence to support the use of force.

He said if US officials were correct that a civil war in Iraq could result if the United States pulled out prematurely, "My question to them is: when and how then do we extract ourselves from this mess?"

About 2800 Iraqi government security troops have died in action in the war, said a US defence official, while about 200 British and other allied troops have also died.

According to the Pentagon, about 22 per cent of the US military deaths in the war have resulted from "non-hostile" circumstances, ranging from illnesses to vehicle accidents and suicides, with the rest killed in action.

Mr Bush argued that Iraq was making progress by approving a new constitution that clears the way for elections for a new government in December, and that Iraqi troops are increasingly playing a larger role in fighting the insurgency.

In the Senate, Senator Leahy said once a new Iraqi government is in place, Mr Bush should consult with the US congress on "a flexible plan that includes pulling our troops back from the densely populated areas where they are suffering the worst casualties and to bring them home".

Mr Bush said arguments calling for a US withdrawal from Iraq were refuted by a simple question: whether America and other nations would be more or less safe if Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were in control there.

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