Three years after the Iraq war, the country's situation continued to deteriorate. Bombings and killings are a daily experience for Iraqi civilians, and clashes between Sunnis and Shiites have gotten fiercer. On November 5, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, providing another possible rallying point for further conflict. The United States faces the dilemma of staying in or leaving the country. As nearly 3,000 U.S. military members have died in Iraq since 2003, experts from both the Democratic and Republican parties issued an Iraq Study Group Report calling for a short-term increase in U.S. forces with a gradual decrease by early 2008.