| Where is the US really at in Iraq?
Well...honestly, I can't answer. But I can provide a link-heavy summary of an afternoon's research on the topic.
It is tough to get definitive, comprehensive information about just what's going on there. Certainly, corporate media hasn't been highlighting the subject for a while, presumably at least in part because the US drawdown is going more or less as planned, without the dire consequences proclaimed as inevitable by the neocons. (More on that below.) Also, the whole tragedy is a powerfully compelling manifestation of conservative failure, and therefore very much a topic the corporatists would prefer that their media puppets avoid. They'd rather see, and do see, a lot of 'Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam' stuff on otherwise light news days.
Currently, depending on whose figures you like best, there are 80-90,000 US military personnel in or near Iraq as part of the official US presence. Based on the Status of Forces Agreement, the US is to completely withdraw by December 31, 2011. (The referendum on possibly having the US leave sooner, referenced in that article, didn't happen.) Iraqis may still require that it happen sooner, depending on the nature of the governing coalition currently being negotiated. Or other scenarios could eventuate; this popped up just a couple of days ago. And US Defense Secretary Robert Gates talked about post-2011 'residual forces' back when this was written.
Key components of 'official' US policy are summarized here.
The neocons are, of course, squealing like swine, as is their wont, that 'we' have to stay! I'm not going to link examples of their idiot babbling. You already know, as well as I do, what it says. I'd just point out that events - from the absence of WMDs to the Iraqi populace neglecting to welcome US troops 'with flowers and chocolate' to the ludicrous nature of claims that the war 'would pay for itself' to countless other examples - have proven the Iraq war proponents as wrong as people can be, over and over and over again. And that it's been quite a while - 65 years, to be precise - since American involvement in a war could be termed a clear 'success.'
More, much more, below the fold. |
| This post, by Juan Cole, from a couple of weeks ago, has about as good analysis of the current situation in Iraq as I know of. Along with this one, that is, from just a few days ago, that is a little more upbeat in its overall tone. It is a very huge and very complex subject. This recent article, from a major US corporate news source, is predictably right-leaning, highlighting 'conservative critics,' but also informative.
This page has a whole lot of numbers about Iraq, though I'd prefer more links included therein.
The place to go for military casualty figures is icasualties, which also includes continually updated links to current news. The DoD's list does break out, among the wounded, those who returned, and didn't return, to duty within 72 hours of their injuries. I don't know of any more precise breakdown, i.e. paralyzed, loss of one or more limbs, etc. (Comments welcome, on that or anything else.)
Two numbers have proved impossible for me to arrive at, with any degree of assurance at all. One is the number of Iraqi civilian casualties. The other is the total cost of the war, current and projected. For each, the debate is pretty much between two factions, one of which sets its figures much higher than the other does.
Regarding Iraqi civilian deaths (I know of no source purporting to count the seriously wounded, etc.; estimates of the displaced range from 2-5 million):
- Many sources use figures in the range of 60-150,000. Here, for example.
- At least one source put the figure at over one million, as of January 2008.
- IBC (also linked two lines above) has attacked that figure, with suspiciously marked bitterness if you ask me.
- Toward the bottom of this page, someone tries to make a little sense of it all, via links and comments.
- Juan Cole's take is here.
Even I'm not going to be so intellectually arrogant as to claim that I'm confident regarding which figures are closer to the truth. Even the low-end range is horrific enough, for a war every informed, rational, humane person on the planet knows never should have happened.
As to cost, the number generally used is around $700-900 billion, as on, for example, this site.
In March, 2008, Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, with Linda J. Bilmes, published a piece pegging the true cost at a much higher figure, in the range of $3-4 trillion. (I must note that Milton Friedman won a Nobel, too. But Stiglitz's work, unlike Friedman's, remains widely respected among knowledgeable, rational people.) They've published a book on the subject, The Three Trillion Dollar War, that I haven't read yet, but plan to. Even despite indications that the book has been subjected to criticism by none other than the one and only John Lott, Jr., of More Guns, Less Crime infamy.
For anyone to claim (believe it or not, some do) that the US invasion of Iraq and its results represent a 'success,' and that, by extension, the US should create more situations like it, is behavior so vile, despicable and cowardly that one shudders that it remains extant after 5500+ years of so-called 'civilization.' That's one thing I am comfortable being specific about. |
