"Go to your senators' offices, to federal buildings. Sit down and say enough is enough. The killing has to stop sometime," Sheehan said. (Reuters)

BAGHDAD, October 25, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The US toll in war-torn Iraq hit 2,000 casualties on Tuesday, October 25, more than two and a half years after the invasion of the oil-rich Arab country.

Fatalities among US troops reached the milestone of 2,000 when the Pentagon announced that a US soldier injured in Iraq had died from his wounds in Texas, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Staff Sergeant George Alexander Jr, 34, of Killeen, Texas, died at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, on October 22, of injuries sustained in Samarra, Iraq, on October 17, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle," a Pentagon statement said.

According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Web site, there have been 2,000 US deaths since US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, most from resistance attacks.

However, the official Pentagon count, last updated on Tuesday, remained at 1,993 military personnel killed and more than 15,000 injured since the start of the war.

The deadliest strike against US forces in Iraq was in December 2003 when a bomber killed 22 people, including 18 Americans, in the mess hall of a US base in Mosul.

Resonating

"Two thousand is a significant number and will resonate with the US public," said Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst at Jane's Information Group in London.

"There is no doubt whatsoever about that."

"It will also resonate with the insurgents," he told AFP, referring to Iraqi resistance fighters.

Heyman stressed that if the US forces carry on like this "it is possible that by this time next year there will be another 1,000 dead."

Other observers say the US population which has generally accepted a toll far below the 58,000 who died in Vietnam will start to take notice if another highly symbolic figure is reached.

Wrong War

A Harris Interactive poll published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal found that for the first time a majority of Americans (53 percent) believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do."

Only hours before the number of US military fatalities in Iraq reached 2,000, the poll showed that 44 percent said the situation for US troops in Iraq was getting worse, compared with 19 percent who thought it was improving.

Growing discontent in the United States has put President George Bush on the defensive.

He warned Tuesday that the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq "will require more sacrifice" but ruled out withdrawing US troops.

Bush, his poll numbers at their worst level since he took office in January 2001, used a lengthy speech to military families to try to contain potential political damage from the rising US casualty rate.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice steadfastly refuses to say when troops might be pulled out, stressing they were in Iraq to wipe out the "malignant" influence of Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

Bush led the nation into war saying that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction, a claim that has been proved false.

Troop Withdrawal

"This is another tragic milestone in this costly war, in which too much blood has been spilled already," said Senator Byrd.

The grim milestone of 2,000 US military deaths in Iraq prompted several US lawmakers on Tuesday to call for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

"This is another tragic milestone in this costly war, in which too much blood has been spilled already," said Democratic Senator Robert Byrd on the floor of the US Senate, where lawmakers observed a moment of silence in honor of the fallen troops.

Leading Democrats in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives also called for the withdrawal of US troops.

"Two thousand American troops have now lost their lives in Iraq. It is time to end this war," said Representative James McGovern on the House floor.

"This war is based on a fiction. There were no weapons of mass destruction and no ties to Al-Qaeda. There was no imminent threat," the Massachusetts Democrat continued.

"We have spent over 300 billion dollars on the war -- with no end in sight. It is estimated that another two years will boost that amount to one trillion dollars," McGovern said.

Byrd, one of the most outspoken critics of the war, said he regretted Congress's vote in October 2002 to give Bush the power to declare war against Iraq.

He stressed it would be an even bigger mistake for the United States to take up new military action elsewhere in the Middle East .

"That resolution was limited to Iraq alone -- it has no mention of Iran, it has no mention of Syria. It cannot possibly authorize a new war against Syria or Iran.

"Our troops are so deeply mired in the sectarian conflicts in Iraq , what point could there possibly be in contemplating an attack on Syria or Iran?" Byrd said.

"The American people seek an end to this ongoing, bloody war in Iraq, not new conflicts in neighboring countries."

Civil Disobedience

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq , called Tuesday for civil disobedience to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

"We've identified the problem and it's not going away. What I think it's going to take now is non-violent, peaceful civil disobedience all over the country," Sheehan told reporters across the street from the White House.

Sheehan said she planned to lie down on the street in front of the White House grounds on Wednesday, October 27, knowing she would likely be arrested.

"And when they let me out I will come back and do the same thing (again) if I get arrested," she said.

Sheehan, who gained national attention when she camped outside Bush's ranch in Texas demanding a meeting with him, urged opponents of the war to demand their elected representatives that Washington withdraws the 140,000 US troops deployed in Iraq.

"Go to your senators' offices, to federal buildings. Sit down and say enough is enough. The killing has to stop sometime," she said.

Sheehan was accompanied by Mary Ann Wright, a former career US diplomat and military officer who resigned to protest the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Wright was arrested along with Sheehan and hundreds of other anti-war activists last month outside the White House.

Wright said acts of civil disobedience represented the best way to focus attention on the anti-war cause.

"We intend to do peaceful, non-violent disobedience because that's what is covered (by the media)," Wright said. "If it takes that, we'll do it."