NORMAL, Ill. – As of Nov. 25, the war in Iraq lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in WWII.

The Iraq War began on March 19, 2003, when the United States bombed Baghdad. Only a few months later on May 1, Bush declared the major combat operation of the war over. He announced this on an aircraft carrier with a “Mission Accomplished” banner.

Yet most of the 2,800 plus U.S. military deaths have happened since Bush announced the war was “coming to an end.”

Without counting Bush’s proclamation of the war being done the conflict in Iraq has been going on for three years and a little over eight months.

“We have been in Iraq for a really long time and yet it seems like nothing is being done to improve the country,” Tammy Tokarz, a sophomore middle school education major, said.

John Mueller, a political science professor from Ohio State University wrote the book, “War, Presidents and Public Opinion.” Recently he was interviewed by Tom Raum, a reporter from the Associated Press where he stated, “Americans soured on Iraq after doing a rough cost-benefit analysis. They say, ‘What’s it worth to us and how much is it costing us?'”Tokarz said.

“By that standard, Americans were willing to abandon the Iraq war long before they turned against the war in Vietnam. So that, for example, when more than 2,000 Americans had died in Iraq, support lowered. It took 20,000 deaths in Vietnam to lower support for that war to the same level,” Tokarz explained in the article.

Alison Vannaken a senior criminal justice major said she is not surprised the war in Iraq is lasting longer then WWII.

“In WWII we were not trying to rebuild a country, but by being in Iraq right now we are attempting to rebuild an entire country and that takes a lot of time,” Vannaken said.

Other Americans are beginning to feel the impact of their country being at war in Iraq for all this time.

“I know the Iraq war has affected me directly. I have a friend who died over there from a roadside bomb. He has a wife and a kid. But the war is also affecting everyone in this country. We are paying taxes for the war and all our resources are going into Iraq,” Vannaken added.

Thursday in a joint news conference in Amman, Jordan, President Bush proclaimed Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, “The right man for Iraq.”

“We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so long as the government wants us there,” Bush said during the press conference.

“Even though I am not expert on the war on Iraq, from what I know, I think it is time we pull out as soon as possible,” Tokarz said.

In Thursday’s news conference with Bush and Maliki, the two leaders set no timetable for speeding up the training of Iraqi forces, which Bush described as evolving “from ground zero.”

“With all that we want to seem to accomplish there, it’s looking like will are going to be there for a long time,” Vannaken said.