WASHINGTON — Galvanised to action by US President George Bush's inane and reckless “Bring 'em on” challenge to the Iraqis who are resisting the US occupation of their country, Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other organisations based in the military community launched the “Bring Them Home Now campaign” on August 13.

The mission of the Bring Them Home Now campaign is “to unite the voices of military families, veterans and GIs themselves to demand: an end to the occupation of Iraq and other misguided military adventures and an immediate return of all US troops to their home duty stations.”

Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son Jesus was killed in Iraq in March after stepping on an unexploded cluster bomblet left over from a US artillery barrage, told the launch: “I don't want [other] families to suffer what I and my spouse are suffering right now. Bush, enough of this... My son will not return, but I want these other children to return to their homes.”

“We now have 600 families, and we're growing daily”, said Military Families Speak Out co-founder Nancy Lessin, whose son is a marine.

US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq are more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe, because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other “non-combat” deaths, which have gone largely unreported in the world media. As of August 14, 313 occupation troops have died in Iraq (267 US troops, 46 British).

However, the Iraqi people have suffered far more from the invasion of their country. As of August 9, according to the Iraq Body Count web site (<http://www.iraqbodycount.net>), up to 8708 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US attack was launched.

The other underreported cost of the war for US soldiers is the number of US wounded: as of August 8, 827 were officially listed as wounded since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. Unofficial figures are in the thousands. About half have been injured since Bush's triumphant claim at the beginning of May that major combat had ended in Iraq.

Visit <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>.

From Green Left Weekly, August 20, 2003.
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