The Moment of Truth on Iraq: America Wants a New Direction in Iraq

U.S. TROOP CASUALTIES RISING

• June, July and August 2007 marked the bloodiest summer so far for U.S. troops in Iraq with 264 soldiers killed. [icasualties.org]
  
  
• U.S. casualties in Iraq are 56 percent higher this year than at this time in 2006. [icasualties.org]
  
  
• Since January of this year, we have lost 761 brave servicemen and women to the war in Iraq. [icasualties.org]
  
  
• As of September 10th, 3,759 U.S. troops have been killed and more than 27,770 have been wounded in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003. [Department of Defense, 9/10/07]

• In a new poll jointly conducted and released  today by ABC News, BBC News and Japan’s NHK, 47 percent of Iraqis want American forces and their coalition allies to leave the country immediately – a 12 percent increase over March. [Associated Press, 9/10/07]
  
  
• “Every person interviewed in Baghdad and Anbar province, a Sunni-dominated area where Bush recently visited and cited progress, said the troop increase has worsened security.” 70 percent believe security has deteriorated in the areas where the U.S. “surge” troops were located. [Associated Press, 9/10/07; BBC, 9/10/07]
  
  
• Between 67 percent and 70 percent say the surge has “hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development. [BBC, 9/10/07]
  
  
• 57 percent of Iraqis say that attacking coalition forces is “acceptable” – more than three times higher than when polled in February 2004. [ABC News, 9/10/07] 

• 78 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should withdraw some or all of our troops from Iraq. [New York Times, 9/10/07]
  
  
• 60 percent of Americans say the U.S. should set a timetable to withdraw our forces from Iraq and should “stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq.” [USA Today, 9/10/07]

• Congress has already appropriated nearly $565 billion for the war in Iraq since March 2003.
  
  
• According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the U.S. is spending an estimated $10 billion per month in Iraq. [CRS, 6/28/07]

• Month:    $10,000,000,000    
• Week:     $2,307,692,380      
• Day:        $329,670,330
• Hour:       $13,736,264
• Minute:    $228,938
• Second:   $3,816