- *(Official) U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ WAR
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- 2004
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- June: 35
- May: 80
- April: 135
- March: 52
- February: 20
- January: 47
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- 2003
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- December: 40
- November: 82
- October: 43
- September: 30
- August: 35
- July: 47
- June: 30
- May: 37
- April: 73
- March: 65
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- TOTAL U.S. DEAD: 851 (as of 6-24-04)
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- WAR OF 'LIBERATION' ANALYSIS: BUSH's WAR FOR OIL IN IRAQ
PAINTS VERY GRIM PICTURE / AMERICANS ARE ACTAULLY LESS SAFE AND SECURE
DURING THE IRAQ WAR AND OCCUPATION THAN BEFORE / AVERAGE AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD
WILL PAY $3,415 IN 2004 FOR SENSELESS IRAQ WAR!
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- By Jim Lobe
Inter Press Service
6-24-4
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- WASHINGTON - Unless you own
a lot of stock in Halliburton or other big defense, security, or construction
companies, chances are the Iraq war has turned out to be a pretty bad investment,
both in human lives and taxpayer dollars, according to a new assessment
by a progressive Washington-based think tank, the Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS).
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- In what it claims is the first comprehensive accounting
of the costs of the war on the U.S., Iraq, and much of the rest of the
world, IPS concludes that not only have U.S. taxpayers paid a "very
high price for the war," they have also become "LESS SECURE AT
HOME AND IN THE WORLD."
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- Citing a number of recent studies, the report, 'Paying
the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War,' also notes that the 151.1
billion dollars that will have been spent through this fiscal year could
have paid for comprehensive health care for 82 million U.S. children or
the salaries of nearly three million elementary school teachers. According
to one study cited in the 54-page report, the war and occupation will cost
the average U.S. household at least $3,415 through the end of this year.
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- If spent on international programs, the same sum could
have cut world hunger in half and covered HIV/AIDS medicine, childhood
immunization, and clean water and sanitation needs of all developing countries
for more than two years.
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- The report's release comes just a week before the planned
handover by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) of Iraq's "sovereignty"
to the interim government, although its authors stress that the new Iraqi
authorities will exercise only very limited authority given the continuing
presence and autonomy of more than 160,000 U.S. and foreign troops under
U.S. military command and their inability to rescind nearly 100 orders
decreed by the CPA chief Paul Bremer.
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- It also comes amid a number of other negative assessments,
including by Bremer himself, as well as by a series of public-opinion surveys
in Iraq about the occupation's achievements, both for the U.S. and Iraqis.
According to one mid-May poll that was commissioned for the CPA, more than
80 percent of Iraqis say they have NO CONFIDENCE IN THE OCCUPATION AUTHORITIES,
and 55 percent said they would FEEL SAFER IF COALTION FORCES LEFT THE COUNTRY.
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- While the financial costs of the war are enormous, according
to the report, the costs in blood, both for U.S. citizens and Iraqis, are
by no means insignificant. More than 850 U.S. troops have been killed since
the start of the war on March 19, 2003, just over 700 of them since U.S.
President George W. Bush declared the end of major hostilities on May 1,
2003, making the post-combat phase of the war by far the bloodiest U.S.
engagement since the Indochina conflict.
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- In addition more than 5,134 troops were wounded through
Jun. 16, 4,593 of them since the official end of combat. Nearly two-thirds
of the wounded, according to the report, received injuries serious enough
to prevent them from returning to duty. But despite precision bombing and
other weapons and tactics designed to reduce "collateral damage",
the toll among Iraqis has been far more dramatic, according to the report
whose principal author was Phyllis Bennis, IPS' main Middle East analyst.
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- As of Jun. 16, it estimates that between 9,436 and 11,317
civilians have been killed as a direct result of the U.S. invasion and
ensuing occupation, while an estimated 40,000 Iraqis have been injured.
In addition, during "major combat" operations both during the
invasion and after May 1, 2003, the report estimates that between 4,895
and 6,370 Iraqi soldiers and insurgents were killed as of mid-June.
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- Moreover, these figures do not take account of the long-run
health impacts of the estimated 1,100 to 2,200 tonnes of ordnance made
from depleted uranium (DU), which many scientists blamed for illnesses
among U.S. soldiers in the first Gulf War and a seven-fold increase in
child birth defects in southern Iraq since 1991, that were expended during
the March 2003 bombing campaign.
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- Nor do they account for the psychological impact of both
the war and the skyrocketing violence, including murders, rapes, and kidnapping,
that followed the invasion and that now keeps many Iraqi children from
attending school and requires many women to stay off the streets at night.
Violent deaths, according to the report, rose from an average of 14 per
month in 2002 to 357 per month in 2003.
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- Despite promises by the Coalition Provision Authority
(CPA) to rebuild and expand Iraq's infrastructure, the country is still
not producing as much electricity or as much oil on a sustained basis as
it was just before the war, according to the report. Its authors blame
a combination of sabotage by insurgents and INCOMPETENCE AND PROFITEERING
BY BIG U.S. COMPANIES like Halliburton that captured virtually all of the
reconstruction contracts despite the much greater experience of Iraqi firms.
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- Due to security concerns, school attendance is reportedly
running below pre-war levels, while Iraq's hospitals and health systems
have been overwhelmed by a combination of lack of supplies and unprecedented
demand created by the ongoing violence.
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- "WE HAVE PLAYED A LARGE PART IN DESTROYING THIS
COUNTRY," said Bennis, who recalled the first Gulf War and the 13
years of U.S.-backed U.N. sanctions that had already weakened much of Iraq's
infrastructure before the war.
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- Washington's invasion and occupation have also exacted
other costs for which the United States may have to pay for a very long
time, according to the report, which cited a recent assessment by the conservative
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) that the Iraq war
has GREATLY INCREASED RECRUITMENT BY AL QAEDA and similar radical groups.
The London-based think tank estimated al Qaeda's membership at 18,000 with
1,000 active in Iraq.
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- That assessment also echoes the conclusion of a new book
by a top active-duty Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer to be released
next week that "(t)here is nothing that (al Qaeda chief Osama) bin
Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation
of Iraq." The author, "Anonymous," until recently headed
the CIA efforts to track down bin Laden and is considered an expert on
al Qaeda.
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- [ "IMPERIAL HUBRIS" due out 7-1-04 ]
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- Washington has also dealt a serious blow to its own standing
and credibility in the larger world, as well as in Arab and Islamic nations,
according to the report, which cites recent surveys of public opinion in
more than two dozen countries, including its closest European allies; the
weakening of the United Nations and international law resulting from both
the precedent created by going to war unilaterally and in the inhumane
treatment of detainees in both Afghanistan and Iraq; and the alienation
of the Iraqi public.
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- "Rather than winning hearts, U.S. ACTIONS HAVE DESTROYED
LIVES," said Anas Shallal, an Iraqi-American who founded the Mesopotamia
Cultural Society and contributed to the report.
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- © Copyright 2004 IPS - Inetr Press Service ###
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