20 civilians a day are dying in Iraq

Documented civilian deaths due to violence in Iraq over the last 2 months. (Data from Iraq Body Count)

MCCAIN: This strategy has succeeded. And we are winning in Iraq. And we will come home with victory and with honor. And that withdrawal is the result of every counterinsurgency that succeeds.

And I want to tell you that now that we will succeed and our troops will come home, and not in defeat, that we will see a stable ally in the region and a fledgling democracy.

The consequences of defeat would have been increased Iranian influence. It would have been increase in sectarian violence. It would have been a wider war, which the United States of America might have had to come back.

So there was a lot at stake there. And thanks to this great general, David Petraeus, and the troops who serve under him, they have succeeded. And we are winning in Iraq, and we will come home. And we will come home as we have when we have won other wars and not in defeat.

Just to clarify; when John McCain insists that we are winning in Iraq, his definition of victory includes the fact that the capital city has been ethnically cleansed, neighborhoods are literally walled off from one another, one-fifth of the population of the country have fled their homes, corruption is rampant, Iran has extended it's influence into the highest levels of the government and, on average, only 20 people are being murdered every day.