The war in Iraq reached another sad marker last week, when the number of US casualties climbed to 4000, Associated Press reported. The revelation came just days after the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war, when a roadside bomb took the lives of five US soldiers in the southern part of Baghdad.

Despite anti war groups’ nationwide candlelight vigil Monday night, public awareness of the war and its casualties is at an all time low, according to media researchers at the Pew institute. As of March, only 28 percent of Americans correctly identified the approximate number of US casualties compared to 54 percent in August 2007. This drop was observed among all education levels.

The ignorance correlates with sharply decreased news coverage of the war in recent months. Stories about the war dropped from an average 15 percent of the publication in July to 3 percent in February across most major media outlets. In addition, a Pew poll found a significant increase in the number of Americans who believe that the US military is making progress in Iraq despite recent explosions of violence around cities like Basra. Public awareness of the ongoing war in Afghanistan is even lower.

President Bush, wanting to end his presidency on a note of progress, stated that he wants “an outcome that merits the sacrifice” in Iraq. Following conferences with General Petraeus, Bush had announced plans to keep a steady level of troops in Iraq through 2008, meaning that any withdrawal will have to be at the hands of the next incoming president. The US currently has 140 troops deployed in the country.

Igor Kossov