Yesterday John McCain, the self proclaimed expert on Iraq and foreign policy, told an audience in Wisconsin that we “have drawn down to pre-surge levels” in Iraq.

John McCain is wrong.

Before the surge, there were 135,000 US troops in Iraq. Today there are 155,000. Last I checked 155,000 is greater than 135,000. Oops.

I just came across this piece by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) on The Huffington Post. I think it’s a really good tribute on this sad anniversary; five years in Iraq. I’ll post it verbatim.

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the start of our nation’s invasion of Iraq. Again we are confronted with a sorrowful reminder of the consequences of that fateful decision by the death of four Americans killed in Baghdad, bringing the total number of American troops who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq to 4000. Each brave soul leaves behind devastated loved ones — sons, daughters, wives, husbands, moms, and dads. Each tragic loss leaves a void — a missing smile and loving embrace, an empty chair at the family dinner table — that can never be filled.

As we mark this painful milestone, we must ask ourselves: what is the moral justification for allowing this war to continue? Can we honestly say that the disastrous mission in Iraq warrants the sacrifice of more of our troops and the heartache and loss that so many loved ones continue to suffer?

In March of 2003, just prior to the invasion of Iraq, I made a final plea to the administration and my colleagues in Congress to avert a war that I believed would reap sorrowful consequences for our nation. In a speech entitled “We Stand Passively Mute”, I expressed my outrage at the fact that the United States Senate — the world’s greatest deliberative body — stood “for the most part-silent-ominously, dreadfully silent” on this monumental question.

Sadly, my worst fears have been realized. The decision to invade Iraq may go down as one of the gravest foreign policy blunders in our nation’s history.

Yet the war continues. American troop levels are higher than they were the day President Bush flamboyantly swooped onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to declare “Mission Accomplished.”

Four thousand Americans have now lost their lives, including twenty-three brave West Virginians. Almost thirty-thousand Americans have been wounded in action, many gravely, and countless thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed.

It is long past time to start bringing our troops home. Our men and women in uniform toppled the dictator. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There is scarce evidence that the Iraqi government is working to achieve the kind of political reconciliation that could end the continuing sacrifice of our brave men and women.

At this somber moment, let us resolve to take steps to finally bring this tragic war to an end. In 2008, the American people must not stand passively mute, as far too many of their leaders did five years ago. Let your voices be heard.

Today, America enters its sixth year in Iraq. As President Bush takes the stage to tout all that we have accomplished, thousands of activists hit the streets of Washington, D.C., calling on our political leaders to end the war and bring our troops home now. We honor the brave men and women who have served our country, we pay tribute to those who were gravely injured, and we remember those who lost their lives in this war that should have never been waged.

It’s a pretty depressing day that deserves solemnity. However, to the media, this is just another day of scandals, flip-flops and campaign trail coverage. It’s five years later, and the media still treats a war that has killed thousands upon thousands and cost billions as a sideshow to the less important stories of the day.

In fairness, at least MSNBC host Mika Brezinski seems to recognize the absurdity of what her producers have put in her teleprompter.

The issue of the war in Iraq seemed to have disappeared from the campaign trail in recent weeks and months, with some declaring that the so-called surged has worked, others stating the war has ended, and the major news networks simply ignoring the war. Proponents of the war and the surge frequently cite the military progress that has been accomplished but ignore the lack of political reconciliation that the surge was ostensibly created to fix. But according to Spencer Ackerman at the new Washington Independent, even those security gains now seem at risk:

Iraq security statistics over the past 13 weeks, obtained exclusively by The Washington Independent, tell the tale. In Baghdad, improvised-explosive device (IED) detonations explosions in Baghdad have ticked up slightly to 131 in January from 129 in December—and the last week of January is not included in these latest figures. Countrywide, there was an increase in IED explosions to 2,291 in December from 1,394 in November, followed by a dip to 1,270 in the first three weeks of January. But the week ending on January 25 saw seven suicide explosions Iraq-wide, the most since the week ending Dec. 21, 2007.

It is too early to conclude that the security gains of the surge are unwinding. But they’re being put under stress in a manner not seen since the so-called “Surge of Operations” began in mid-June. Some speculate that the insurgency, knocked on its heels by the changing tactics of U.S. forces in mid-2007, is beginning to adjust, a few months before the surge draws to a close. “I think there’s some credibility to that argument,” said Brian Katulis, a national-security expert at the liberal Center for American Progress. “It all begs the question of what’s the grand endgame.”

Meanwhile, John McCain wants 100 more years in Iraq and is already looking forward to our next war.

Let’s end the war and bring our troops home.