CNN REPORTS: IRAQ SECURITY ADVISER TELLS AMERICANS: BE PATIENT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As the Iraq war entered its sixth year, the country's national security adviser urged Americans to be patient, contending that the war is "well worth fighting" because it has implications about "global terror."
"This is global terrorism hitting everywhere, and they have chosen Iraq to be a battlefield. And we have to take them on," Mowaffak al-Rubaie said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

Iraq security adviser to Americans: Be patientStory Highlights Mowaffak al-Rubaie said Sunday that Iraq war is "well worth fighting"Iraq war entered its sixth year on March 19; nearly 4,000 Americans have died30 Iraqis died in Iraq on Sunday; 80,000 to 150,000 or more died since war's startDemocratic senator: Pause in withdrawal sends "wrong message to the Iraqis"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/23/iraq.main/index.html

"If we don't prevail, if we don't succeed in this war, then we are doomed forever," he said. "I understand and sympathize with the mothers, with the widows, with the children who have lost their beloved ones in this country.

"But honestly, it is well worth fighting and well worth investing the money and the treasure and the sweat and the tears in Iraq."

Since the March 19, 2003, U.S.-led invasion, nearly 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq, including three on Saturday.

Estimates of the Iraqi death toll range from about 80,000 to 150,000 or more. At least 30 Iraqis were killed Sunday, officials said.

Nearly 160,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, and the war has cost U.S. taxpayers about $600 billion, according to the House Budget Committee.

The conflict is now widely unpopular among Americans: A CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll out Wednesday found only 32 percent of Americans support the conflict. And 61 percent said they want the next president to remove most U.S. troops within a few months of taking office.

In the weekly Democratic radio address Saturday, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey said President Bush "took us to war on the wings of a lie."

Menendez said that the war has depleted the resources and morale of the U.S. military; diverted national attention away from the war in Afghanistan, where al Qaeda is regrouping; and hurt the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The Iraq war has not made Americans safer, Menendez said, but has instead hurt the U.S. economy.

The senator called for a "responsible new direction" regarding Iraq.

CNN learned last week, from several U.S. military officials familiar with the recommendations but not authorized to speak on the record, that senior U.S. military officials are preparing to recommend to Bush a four- to six-week "pause" in additional troop withdrawals from Iraq after the last of the "surge" brigades leaves in July.

"If the conditions on the ground dictate that we have to have a pause, then we will have to have a pause," al-Rubaie said.

The return of all five brigades added to the Iraq contingent last year could reduce troops levels by up to 30,000, but still leave approximately 130,000 or more troops in Iraq.
Al-Rubaie emphasized Sunday that any drawdown of U.S. troops "has to be based on the conditions on the ground."