The news is filled with stories about political filibusters and celebrity
nonsense.

Meanwhile, Iraq has become old news even though the casualty rate continues to escalate. According to a coalition Web site, more than 1,600 U.S. troops have been killed and many more severely injured. These are mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of your neighbors. Wake up! Support our troops. Send them home!

The Bush administration recently called off its hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It found no WMDs, which acknowledges what Bush was told by the U.N. weapons inspectors before invading Iraq.

No hard evidence was ever found to justify the cost of about 1,400 Americans who have been killed in Iraq so far, or the countless thousands of Americans who will never be the same physically or mentally, or the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians Bush killed, or the loss of world support for America.

Mr. Bush says he has no regrets.

Our troops have done their job. Now resentment of our presence in Iraq promotes violence rather than stability and our troops serve mainly as human targets. It is time to start taking our troops out and let them return to their families. To do this we will need to work with other nations to provide more of an international force to help Iraq gain stability. Our kids should no longer bear the primary burden.

We want to support the troops. But we can't support the troops if they are dead.

Doug Long, Rio Rancho, N.M.

To the Editor of THE EAGLE:-

Oct. 19, 2004, two weeks before last November's election, an AP headline
read: "Bush doesn't see longtime presence in Iraq."

Today, June 18, 2005, an AP headline reads: "Bush: Pulling out of Iraq not
an option."

There are two things especially interesting about Bush's June 18 in his
weekly radio address.

First, he admitted that his mission had been to remove Hussein, one to which -- had he been honest about it -- he could never have gotten the U.N. or other countries, or perhaps the U.S. Congress, to agree.

Second, Bush was responding to a resolution introduced in Congress by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers calling for removal of U.S. troops in Iraq to begin by Oct. 1, 2006. That's right; not October of 2005, but October of 2006. Bush's response: Withdrawal is not an option.

Remember when officials in the Bush administration kept saying and hinting they hoped to be out of Iraq within "months, not years." Rumsfeld expressed the same hope -- as a prediction -- at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan started on Oct. 7, 2001, the war in Iraq on March 19, 2003. The "mission accomplished" ceremony on the USS Abraham Lincoln in which Bush celebrated the end to "major combat" was May 1, 2003. But both wars have lasted years, not just months. And Oct., 2006 is too early -- says Bush -- for Americans to expect the beginning of the phase-down of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Had the mission in Iraq been the removal of weapons of mass destruction -- as we were told -- we could have left Iraq after a few months, because by that time it was apparent there were no WMDs. But that was not the mission. Bush's real mission was to remove Hussein and set up a regime favorable to U.S. rich folk.

To begin reducing our troops in Iraq in October of 2006 is unacceptable. The occupation should end immediately, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops completed quickly. Iraqis are desirous and capable of taking care of Iraq.

Bring troops home

Regarding the war in Iraq, however the election in Iraq turns out, I suggest to President George W. Bush that he declare victory and pull out our troops. Iraq is a nation of approximately 25 million people. It had no air force or navy to speak of. It had no weapons of mass destruction and even if it developed them it had no way to send them 7,000 miles to America. In short, we should not have invaded them. It was a stupid decision to do so. We might have to stay in Iraq 10 to 20 years to secure it from its enemies. Just think of the cost and the casualties we would incur if we stayed that long.

I am a veteran of World War II. I spent five years in the China, Burma, India area. During my service, I received a battlefield promotion from sergeant to lieutenant. I have been there. I know what war is like.

WILLIAM H. SHARPE SR.

In Short, Bring Troops Home

It is time to start calling for U.S. troops to be removed from Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, but also anywhere else in the world.