I left Iraq on February 27, 2004 and from what I hear from my friends who are still there—many on their third or fourth deployments—it's worse now than ever before. The "surge" was a failure and it's time to draw down our troops.

Clicking below will add your name to this petition:

"The escalation was a failure. Congress must begin a fully funded redeployment
and start bringing our troops home from Iraq immediately."

This president can't be trusted, his policy is reckless and it's more and more dangerous every day.
Here's what's happened in Iraq since the escalation went into effect.

• Violence has gone up in Iraq. This summer is on track to be one of the bloodiest summers for Iraqis and U.S. troops, with nearly twice as many U.S. troops killed this July than the previous July. 1

• The surge has not created political stability. The central premise of the surge was that it would increase political stability. Two years after Sunnis were brought into the political transition, a Sunni bloc withdrew from the government. 2 This week's original Government Accountability Office report showed that 15 out of 18 of Bush's own political benchmarks remain unmet. 3

• We've poured weapons into Iraq's civil war. Another Government Accountability Office report earlier this summer showed that the Pentagon lost track of nearly 200,000 weapons given to Iraqis. We distribute weapons and then they disappear and we don't know what happens to them. What we do know is that violence increases—both among Iraqi sectarian groups and against American troops. 4

• Ethnic cleansing is happening in Baghdad. The once Sunni dominated city is now dominated by Shiites. Here is a quote from the most recent Newsweek: "When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won." 5

As an Iraq war veteran I felt so much relief after the November of 2006 election—I felt like we would finally end this mess and start bringing our troops home from Iraq. I've been let down a lot over this last year and I want to do everything I can to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Congress has the power to force redeployment and they have to use that power this fall. Nothing is more important to me than making sure we start bringing all our troops home—and I need your help to make sure that's what happens.

Please sign the petition today.  http://pol.moveon.org/troopshome/o.pl?id=11180-4288452-BOH2B3&t=5

Thanks for all you do.   –John Bruhns, former US Army Infantry Sergeant.
  Wednesday, September 5th, 2007

Today we're launching VideoVets: Bring Our Troops Home—a project that will help give voice to veterans and military families who want to put us on a course to start bringing our troops home. Just tell us which video you think is most compelling and Oliver Stone will turn it into a TV ad.   Watch the Videos

       Every day at MoveOn we get letters from military families and veterans who're outraged that the president hides behind the troops to justify his policy—a policy that's leaving tens of thousands of them stranded in the middle of an unwinnable civil war. We talked to our friends at VoteVets.org about their members, who felt the same way. We realized we had to help give these folks a platform to speak out.
       Over 700 MoveOn members around the country volunteered their time to interview and videotape the veterans and military families. Then we put them up on our website—and on YouTube—for you to watch.
       Today, we have over 20 interviews, each less than 2 minutes long. Here are just a few examples of the moving stories we heard.

• John, a former sergeant who served in Iraq told us "I feel used and I feel misled by the administration. I feel that my patriotism has been used and exploited—my willingness to fight for this country was used and exploited."
• Peter, also a former sergeant who served in Iraq said, "If there was a manual written on how not to fight a war, it would be this administration's playbook."
• Pam, whose son was deployed to Iraq as part of the escalation told us "They are young kids and they are now going to be placed there, on the frontlines, with an abbreviated month of training, with poor equipment, with inadequate equipment and they know it."

Barack Obama and John Edwards were the top two in MoveOn members' vote on Iraq.

MoveOn's Iraq townhall delivers [VIDEO] By Jan Frel It's pretty clear which Dems are serious about Iraq, and which aren't.

Also, a new organization—the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America—is working to be a voice for veterans.