Iraq War is Lost

Top Dem says Iraq 'war is lost'; What do you think?

Below is an excerpt from the press conference in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., made some controversial remarks about the conflict in Iraq, including a claim that "this war is lost."

Reid: As we've learned from reading the memoirs and press accounts and interviews following that war -- at the time there were 24,000 Americans killed in Vietnam -- President Johnson had to make a decision. The secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the president knew the war was not winnable.

But President Johnson did not want a war loss on his watch. And so he surged in Vietnam, sent tens of thousands of new troops to Vietnam. After the surge was over we added to the 24,000 dead Americans 34,000.

Now, I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense -- and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows -- that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.