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Pray for Peace, Troops and ‘Innocents’--Bush

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From Associated Press

President Bush today designated Sunday a national day of prayer, asking Americans to pray for peace, for U.S. and allied troops and for “the innocents caught up in this war.”

Meanwhile, the commander of Operation Desert Storm, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, said that if word of the first U.S. ground combat deaths “is sobering to the American people, I don’t think that’s unhealthy.”

Bush, at a National Prayer Breakfast with lawmakers and religious leaders, said, “I encourage all people of faith to say a special prayer on that day, a prayer for peace, a prayer for the safety of our troops, a prayer for their families, a prayer for the innocents caught up in this war.”

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In an interview on CNN, Schwarzkopf, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in the Persian Gulf, said that “perhaps in the euphoria of the high-technology weapons and this sort of thing, we had lost sight of the fact that lives are being lost. . . . There are human lives involved here, and war is going to kill people.”

The general added: “If this is sobering to the American people, I don’t think that’s unhealthy. As a matter of fact, I think it’s important that the American people understand that.”

Some Democratic lawmakers said Bush needs to do more to prepare the public for the likely carnage that full-scale ground fighting could bring.

“I think we have expectations that are unrealistic,” said Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. So far, he said, the war has been “essentially devoid of casualties,” creating “a standard impossible to match.”

But House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said the public has no illusions about the potential human cost.

“I don’t think the country is without realism on this. Any idea that the war can somehow be costless . . . is now gone,” Foley said.

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