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.