Myth-UK

2,947 US Soldiers Killed, 22,229 Wounded, 140,000 Remain in Iraq

Spent & Approved War-Spending - $505 billion of US taxpayers' funds, including $70 billion more approved by the Republican-led Congress and signed by the President in Sept 2006 for Iraq & Afghanistan

Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors

Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and kUnsupported - $1.4 billion

Coalition Troops in Iraq (last updated by US as of Oct 2006) - Total 158,000, including 140,000 from the US, 7,200 from the UK, and 10,800 from all other nations (other than Iraq). Italy pulled out all its tropps by Dec 2, 2006.

US Troop Casualities - 2,947 US troops; 98% male. 90% non-officers; 78% active duty, 14% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 20% killed by non-hostile causes. 53% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 68% were from the US Army

Non-US Troop Casualties - Total 247, with 126 from the UK

US Troops Wounded - 22,229, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)

US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home

US Military Helicopters Downed in Iraq - 54 total, 27 by enemy fire

Private Contractors in Iraq, Working in Support of US Army Troops - 84,105 (NOTE - The US has not updated this count since Oct 2005)

Journalists killed - 77, 41 by murder and 36 by acts of war

Journalists killed by US Forces - 14

Iraqi Military and Police Casualties - 5,871

Iraqi Civilians Killed, Estimated - A UN issued report dated Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian casualities have been significantly under-reported. Casualties are reported at 50,000 to over 100,000, but may be much higher. Some informed estimates place Iraqi civilian casualities at over 600,000.

Iraqi Insurgents Killed, Roughly Estimated - 55,000

Non-Iraqi Contractors and Civilian Workers Killed - 449

Non-Iraqi Kidnapped - 298, including 54 killed, 147 released, 4 escaped, 6 rescued and 87 status unknown.

Daily Insurgent Attacks, Feb 2004 - 14

Daily Insurgent Attacks, July 2005 - 70

Daily Insurgent Attacks, Nov 2006 - 180

Daily Insurgent Attacks, Dec 2006 - 185

Estimated Insurgency Strength, Nov 2003 - 15,000

Estimated Insurgency Strength, Sept 2006 - 20,000+

Iraqi Unemployment Rate - 27 to 60%, where curfew not in effect

Consumer Price Inflation in 2005 - 20%

Iraqi Children Suffering from Chronic Malnutrition - 25% in May 2006

Iraqis Displaced by Iraq War, as of Nov 2006 - 650,000

Percent of professionals who have left Iraq since 2003 - 40%

Iraqi Physicians Before 2003 Invasion - 34,000

Iraqi Physicians Who Have Left Iraq Since 2005 Invasion - 12,000

Iraqi Physicians Murdered Since 2003 Invasion - 2,000

Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 10.1

Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 7.3

Number of Iraqi Homes Connected to Sewer Systems - 37%

Percentage of Iraqi Homes with Access to Piped Water - 78%

Water Treatment Plants Rehabilitated - 22%

RESULTS OF POLL Taken in Iraq in August 2005 by the British Ministry of Defense (Source: Brookings Institute)

Iraqis "strongly opposed to presence of coalition troops - 82%

Iraqis who believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security - less than 1%

Iraqis who feel less ecure because of the occupation - 67%

Iraqis who do not have confidence in multi-national forces - 72%

(source: http://usliberals.about.com/od/homel...aqNumbers.htm)


So..............

Who still thinks were helping the people of Iraq?

bry623

You left out all of the people who died on a sunny Tuesday morning, doing nothing more than going to work.

Tumbleweed36

Hi,

While you have some excellent data and that is always good to know, I wonder about your agenda since you seem to focus on United States issues.

Seems like being you are from Tony Blair's neck of the woods, you would be putting stats from the UK in there instead of worring about our stats and keep focusing on words like US funds, US this and US that. etc., etc. etc.

Surely, your main concern should be about the UK stats and not the US stats to make your point, unless of course this is a political posting and not one of genuine concern. Oh, I did notice the link you posted has the word LIBERAL in the URL.

Now, if you were a US taxpayer, then you would have a legitimate reason to put those in there and complain about how much money we have wasted over there. However, by not doing that for your country makes it evolve into a political agenda and an arm of the Liberal party of the vast left wing agenda of this country.

See, the quoted figures about wasted money from the US has nothing to do with someone who lives in the UK. That is something that I have to talk to my congressman about and you can talk to whomever over there you need to about your countries expenditures.

I certainly don't agree with everything we have done in that war, but there is plenty of blame to go around, so let's pass it around to your country also.

Joefireline

Tumbleweed36, I think you are missing the point of this post completely. He has posted it, as it is a complete waste. And he has put things about UK, and the fact that it is the US that started the war, and caused all this, it is showing how much of a waste it is.
I don't really care too much on the money part of it, but the deaths. He has said about the UK here, and think about it, all those lives are all wasted. All those people suffering. Has it helped anything? Well, it certainly wasn't/isn't worth it. Illegal war, and so much wasted.

Fox

Obfuscation of the issue. Iraq didn't attack us.

Myth-UK

Yes, this thread is mainly based from the US side of it but so what?

Can't i point out that for whats been achieved over there , it's come at a very high price?

I do question the British involvement in this war.

I didnt post it for any reason but to point out what a waste (in general) it has been. Or do you think controlling the Iraqi oil fields is worth it?

"Cost of British operations in Iraq soars to £5.5bn


Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday December 6, 2005
The Guardian

The government has nearly doubled its estimate of the cost of British military operations in Iraq, according to figures revealed by Gordon Brown yesterday.

The chancellor has now agreed to set aside more than £5.5bn to pay for the operations. At the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, ministers allocated £3bn to cover what they called "the full costs of the UK's military obligations" there.

Mr Brown has now made clear that this sum was a huge underestimate. The latest figures also suggest that the annual costs of Britain's military presence in Iraq are increasing. Mr Brown said yesterday that an extra £580m would be allocated to the special reserve for "Iraq, Afghanistan and the government's other international obligations".

This is more than the extra money Mr Brown put in the special reserve last year, and it brings the total provided for the fund to £5.64bn.

Figures obtained by the Iraq Analysis Group, an independent research organisation, show that the vast bulk of the special reserve is spent on British military operations in Iraq, although the government does not specify exactly how the money is allocated.

So far, at least £3.2bn has been spent on British military operations in southern Iraq, with a further £1.7bn already allocated for them, the figures show.

Liam Wren-Lewis, a member of the Iraq Analysis Group, said yesterday: "This latest provision continues a steadily increasing trend in the cost of the Iraq war to UK taxpayers."

The Ministry of Defence was unable to provide figures last night for the cost of its military operations in Iraq.

However, in a note to his cabinet colleagues last summer, John Reid, the defence secretary, said that the cost amounted to about £1bn a year.

That was one reason, he suggested, why he wanted to cut the number of British troops in Iraq. A reduction to about 3,000 troops - from the present 8,500 - by the middle of next year should halve that sum, he said.

The chancellor also announced that an extra £135m would be allocated for security and counter-terrorism measures. Some of this is likely to be spent on increased staff and technology for MI5."

bry623

Obviously, but if you want to be ignorant to history and stick your head in the sand and wait around for the next attack, be my guest. It's sad that 5+ years has made people forget................ :(

yustr

And who do you think it is that "made people forget"? Liberals? Why not we're to blame for everything that goes wrong. Or perhaps it's your buddy GW - who diverted the nations attention and the military's resources by invading Iraq as opposed to his vow to get Bin Laden "dead or alive"?

bry623

Forgetting means concentrating more on death totals than on the over all goal

Myth-UK

So when did any Iraqi's fly planes into a building in America or blow up the trains in Madrid and London? Was it Iraqi's that blew all the holiday makers in Bali?

Erm... *Thinks for a while*

NO!

Iraq has never been a danger to America or Britian, certianly not since 1991.

Fox

Stick my head in the sand and wait for the next attack? You mean the one that still didn't come from Iraq? Again, Bry, you're blurring the issue. GW used Sept. 11 as a launching pad to attack Iraq. Go to your local Wal Mart and I bet half the people there will try and make some kind of connection between the two.

Considering that the only connection between the two is muslims, it's an exceedingly weak argument.

And Afghanistan...hmm, didn't we supply them with boatloads of munitions the moment we saw the opportunity to get into a proxy war with soviet Russia? I wonder why Al Qaeda used AK-47s. Surely the invading Russians didn't hand them out.

You're a history major, right? Then you should know that we essentially provided what would become the Taliban with the tools it needed to gain power.

yustr

From your link:

How many of those other 60 countries have we invaded?

Here's the ONLY mention of Iraq in the speech:

Thanks for making my point for me...

bry623

But that is my point..... it will not be like any other war.

This is what republicans refer to as the Bush doctrine. God bless him for fighting the terrorists overseas instead of appeasing them and paving the way for more innocent deaths in our country.

Myth-UK

What about all the innocent deaths in Iraq, Afganistan, Somalia? Etc..

Korea has WMD's, why arent we attacking them with Air Strikes and invading them?

Korea even said they would happily use them against American soldiers.

China has basically said the same thing.

Bush used 9/ 11 as an excuse to finish what his dad didnt have the bottle to do.

bry623

Your use of the word "we" amuses me. I assume you are using it in the royal vernacular?

China has had nukes forever, but plays by international rules.

9/11 was not an excuse, it was a tragedy. Your lack of respect may come from the fact that your country, Europe (yes I know Europe is a continent) has dealt with therrorism longer than mine. We are new at this and still have feelings and care about it.

Myth-UK

Yes, "We", we follow you around "helping". We (used that word again) are just about the only country backing you up in Iraq.

Yes Europe has had to deal with terrorism for longer, we dont have a laid back approach to it. I think you'll find that Britian, Spain and France have the best anti terrorism units in the world. Perhaps if America didnt believe that they have a right to do whatever they feel like, they would get more respect off the rest of the world.

Lack of Respect?? My God Father was killed by the IRA. So don't start pointing things out that you have no idea about. Saddam and Iraq never once were involved in 9/11. There were no WMD in Iraq. Saddam poised no threat to the West.

So where is the justification to invade?

If America is so "new" at this, why didnt the ask for help from other countries (Like you pointed out) to find these terrorist instead of invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11??? The UN would of backed America and Britian but they saw so many holes in the arguments made that they took a step back. This is an war without merit, or the law on its side.

Perhaps one day America will realise that it cant do as it pleases. Law's are there to be followed. Otherwise we are no better than the people we go after.

If a country invaded you, you would do the same as the insurgents, as the Iraqi people are doing. They dont want us there.

Bush is a fool and the fact he said that God told him to go after terrorist made things tens times worse.

America and Britian need to wake up, were not helping in the middle east, were making things worse.

bry623

Now that is something we both can agree on.

Kalim

Have any of you ever been to Iraq? Since the war or before it?

Disinclude any military related visits here.

Joefireline

I wouldn't call it a tragedy, more of a mistake. It was Americas fault, it could have been prevented. And this doesn't even come into this anyway, it was a excuse, I wouldn't be suppriced is George Bush set it up himself. It should have nothing to do with going to war with Iraq, as it had nothing to do with Iraq.

How on earth they can acidently let bombers onto the planes, I don't know.

I remember when someone said about our planes almost getting bombed, which I had to laugh at, cos we can catch them, America can't seem to be able to. Instead, they will let it happen, and use it as an excuse to go bomb Iraq, obviously just to try to get some oil.

The amount of wasted lives is unbelievable. America has messed up big time here. And Tony Blair seems to just follow him, just not to the extent of him.

bry623

This is one of the most ignorant and heartless things that I have read in my whole life. How dare you claim 9/11 was not a tragedy?

Is it really that obvious? Why I am paying so much for gas? Why haven't we reaped in huge oil surplesses? Where is all the money??

I am openly angry about this and it disgusts me. Being educated, I will allow you your opinion and forgive you for your youth.