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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: tsigprofit who wrote (2965)7/20/2003 4:32:20 PM
From: Raymond Duray  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 20773
 
tsigprofit,

Re: I agree. Definitely more serious than Bill and Monica. One was a personal affair, and one was an apparent lie that has led to over 150 US soldiers dead, over 3000
Iraqis, the hostility of most of the world, and a quagmire
where we are spending $ 4 billion a month now...


I'm not sure where you are getting your information from, but I think it could use some improvement. I realize that you are on the "good guys" team, and I've admired a number of your posts. But this one is deficient. Here's how:

1) "over 150 US soldiers dead"

Actually, the total body bag count at Dover is approaching, if not over, 300 dead Americans. Direct combat deaths are around 150, but that's only part of the picture. The figure that you'll never see the White House announce is the average of 5 Americans per month committing suicide in Iraq.

2) " over 3000 Iraqis,"

That is only about half of the verified total of civilian casualties in Iraq:

iraqbodycount.net

Reasonable and informed estimates of deaths among military forces of Iraq range from 25,000 to 30,000 since the commencement of the invasion on March 20.

Making the actual number of casualties among Iraqis about one order of magnitude higher than your estimate. Somewhere between 28,000 and 38,000 Iraqis have lost their lives in an illegitimate war. That is reprehensible. And it shocks me that the American public can be so blase about this carnage.

Other resources: occupationwatch.org

occupationwatch.org

3) a quagmire where we are spending $ 4 billion a month now.

That is only the amount they've admitted to. When you add the real costs, the burn rate is double that. Here's a more accurate way of looking at this:

costofwar.com

Keep in mind that when Rumsfeld was backed into a corner and said that the war was costing "$3.9 Billion" per month that he was lying. He wasn't including a lot of costs that will eventually be paid. Like interest on our ballooning national debt, the cost of replenishment of armament which Bush ordered at 200% of the level prior to the war, etc., etc.

The actual cost of this war is more on the order of $8 Billion per month. As usual, the estimate Rumsfeld offered was a typical bait-and-switch technique from the most deceitful Administration in American history.