Lives ‘not lost in vain,’ Bush says
President Bush on Monday marked the 4,000th U.S. military death in Iraq with a promise to achieve victory and ensure that the troops did not die in vain.
“One day people will look back at this moment in history and say, ‘Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve,’ because they laid the foundation for peace for generations to come,” Bush told reporters after a closed-door briefing at the State Department.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed in a bomb attack Sunday in Baghdad, taking the American military death toll in the Iraq war to at least 4,000, according to the independent website icasualties.org.
The president earlier held a two-hour classified briefing at the White House by video to discuss the next steps in the region with Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad.
Both officials are scheduled to testify before Congress on April 8 and 9.
“I’ve vowed in the past, and I will vow so long as I’m president, to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain,” Bush said.
“It is a sober moment,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said of the 4,000th-death milestone.
“The president feels each and every one of the deaths very strongly, and he grieves for their families.”
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