Amy's Robot

Bush and Dead People

From a Reuters article about tonight's presidential news conference, which will begin with a 15-minute long speech from the President:

So far more than 670 U.S. troops have died in the conflict. Between 4,000 and 6,000 Iraqi military have died and between 8,000 and 10,000 civilians have lost their lives.

So let's say 8,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the start of the war. Percentage-wise, this would be like if 96,000 American civilians had died on 9/11. (I think my math is correct, assuming the US population is ~290 million and Iraq's is 24 million.)

Update: And so for those outraged readers who wonder, "Yeah, but what about all those people who died under the Baath regime," give me a break: if all we can say is, "We killed 8,000 people but at least we're not killing as many people as Saddam did," that's really not saying much. Come to think of it, between 1992 (after the massacre of the insurgents whom GWB I abandoned) and 2002, was Saddam killing 8,000 people a year?

Here's more on torture in Iraq, pre- and post-Saddam, via Amnesty International.

categories: War and Security
posted by adm at 7:21 PM | #