Iraq By the Numbers

570 Number of American men and women killed in Iraq

430 Number of American men and women killed in Iraq after Bush declared
‘Mission Accomplished’

29,000 Number of American men and women so injured as to require evacuation
out of Iraq

0 Number of funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan Bush
has attended

100+ Number of political fundraising events Bush has attended


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4 responses to “Iraq By the Numbers”

  1. Christian Avatar

    Just because I like to play devil’s advocate, I toss another couple of numbers out there:

    1,000,000 Believed to be the total number of people Saddam has killed.

    200,000 Number of Iraqis believed to have disappeared at the hands of Hussein’s “secret police.”

    Both numbers according to this NYT article.

    I am not one of those who advocated going into Iraq for the WMD. But, I was for the war. I firmly believe when all is said and done, there will be 20+ million happier Iraqis, and a safer world. I am also one of those who believe that this will have a domino effect… if other Mid Eastern countries see their neighbors living happily under democracy, things could start to happen on their own.

    Numbers are fun, because they can be used to support nearly every viewpoint. All you need is the right number.

    COMMENT:
    And that’s the crux these days. Nobody disagrees that Saddam was a terrible dictator (even when we supported him in the 1980s). And being at the march today reminded me that a big reason that millions of people all over the world protested the invasion of Iraq one year ago wasn’t because they were pro-Saddam – or Anti-U.S. – but because the inspections were not given a chance to work. The process of diplomacy was not followed or trusted. Pre-emptive war has been let out of Pandora’s box and will become the justification for sustaining American dominance and agression. Bush and friends did a spectacular shell game in shifting the anger of 9-11 squarely onto the shoulders of Saddam Hussein. Thinly veiled references and statements commingling managed to convince most Americans that Saddam and Bin Laden were one and the same ideology and force.

  2. Tim Z. Avatar

    This site seems to be the most accurate and frequently updated source of information on US and coalition casualties in Iraq. It’s worthy of a bookmark.
    I first learned about it in this article in Slate a couple of months ago.

    Have you noticed that the deaths of individual American service members are seldom reported in the media, except by the press and broadcasters in the victim’s home town?

  3. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    There is a blackout in national media re: American casualties. The guys in charge all remember how caskets swayed the public during Vietnam.

    The DoD enacted this initially in the Gulf War but it wasn’t as strictly followed until the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. The DoD says it is out of respect for the dead – many grieving families say that not having a national media witness to the fallen soldiers is an insult to their loved ones and a shunning from giving due honor.

    Much like creating ‘free speech zones’ to prevent Bush from seeing dissent at his public appearances – this creates a ‘death free’ zone where the dead remain faceless numbers.

  4. John Kusch Avatar

    We mustn’t forget another interesting number:

    8769 – 10618: the estimated number of Iraqi deaths during our war, which the Pentagon doesn’t bother to track.

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