Top US Senate Democrat to Bush: Iraq war is lost

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday he told President George W. Bush the Iraq war was lost and the recent U.S. troop increase had accomplished nothing.

Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, described part of a meeting with Bush at the White House on Wednesday -- the same day bombs killed almost 200 people in Baghdad in the worst day of violence since a U.S.-backed security crackdown was launched there earlier this year. "This is the message I took to the president," Reid said at a news conference. "Now I believe myself ... that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, of Nevada. "I know I was like the odd guy out yesterday at the White House, but at least I told him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear," he added.