The U.S. death toll in Iraq is now over 1000. But a Christian minister from Iraq says those Americans "didn't die for a mistake."

The Rev. Ken Joseph, Jr. says most Iraqis view the Americans as liberators, not occupiers. But he wishes that the U.S. would get tougher with Islamic militants. Joseph says 40,000 Christians have fled Iraq in the last month out of fear that their country may become a Muslim fundamentalist state.

Joseph is asking us to pray that Iraq will emerge as "a democratic and free country."