Mr. Speaker, 9 days ago, 11 innocent Iraqi civilian were killed in an incident involving American military contractors. The circumstances surrounding the tragedy are not clear, but what is clear is that not enough attention has been paid to civilian deaths in Iraq.

By the most conservative count, over 73,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since the occupation began. Just about everyone agrees that the real figure is much higher, since many deaths aren't even reported. But even if you accept the low 73,000 figure, you can see how catastrophic the occupation has been to Iraqi society.

The population of the United States is about 12 times greater than that of Iraq, so 73,000 Iraqi deaths are comparable to over 875,000 American deaths. That is more than the population of Cleveland and Kansas City combined, or Atlanta and Omaha combined. This 875,000 is more than the population of an entire congressional district.

I would also like to call my colleagues' attention to the article in The Washington Post this morning concerning civilian casualties in Iraq. The article points out that the Pentagon's official count of civilian casualties in Iraq shows an increase over the course of this year. This is in stark contrast to the charts that General Petraeus showed us in his testimony earlier this month, which only showed the narrower category of civilian deaths. This is further evidence, Mr. Speaker, that General Petraeus' testimony was part of an overall administration spin campaign to convince this Congress and the American people to keep their support for ``stay the course'' in Iraq.

Iraqi civilians are also suffering, because the violence has forced over 4 million of them to become refugees. The U.N. referred 11,000 refugee applicants to the United States for processing by the end of this fiscal year. In February, the United States promised to admit 7,000. Then that number was downgraded to 2,000. But, so far, only 1,035 refugees have been admitted, and the fiscal year expires in 5 days. This situation is like so many others we have seen during the occupation of Iraq. The administration makes big promises about what it can achieve, then retreats from its promises, and then fails to deliver altogether.

To make our refugee record even worse, the Government Accountability Office has reported that the number of condolence payments the United States Government pays to families of dead or injured Iraqi civilians plunged by 66 percent from the year 2005 to 2006. The condolence payments are, at most, $2,500, $2,500 per incident. Would any one of us consider $2,500 to be a condolence payment for the death of a beloved child or spouse? No, Mr. Speaker, we wouldn't.

This Congress will have failed America, both morally and politically, if we allow the occupation to continue and ignore the suffering of the innocent. We have only one real tool that we can use to end the occupation, the power of the purse. We must not appropriate another dime for the continuation of the occupation. Instead, we must fully fund the safe, orderly, and responsible withdrawal of our troops and the estimated 180,000 military contractors who constitute an even larger army than our 160,000 troops. This is what the American people sent us here to do, and we have a moral obligation to do it. We have an obligation to bring our troops home.