WASHINGTON - January 2 - "Peace Action notes with great sadness the 3,000 U.S. soldier death in Iraq, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of the illegal and unwarranted U.S. invasion, occupation and resulting violence. How many more hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of children, women and men have to die in Iraq, needlessly, before the Bush Administration can admit what the rest of the world understood long ago – that its policy of warfare and continued occupation is a failure of catastrophic proportions?

Since Mr. Bush stubbornly, cravenly – perhaps even delusionally – refuses to change course, the Democratic majority in Congress must heed the unmistakable mandate for peace the voters gave them last November and end this war now. Congress can do so, and truly show support for our troops, by refusing to appropriate another dime for this war, other than to facilitate our troops’ safe return home from Iraq.

Peace Action and its affiliates, chapters and 100,000 members and supporters across the country will redouble our efforts this coming month and new year to make sure that Congress ends the funding for this war, and that we can begin to both end this tragically misguided policy and to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, which is our deep moral debt to the Iraqi people.”

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