USA MILITARY FATALITIES IN IRAQ
Fatalities -- by Month and Cumulative Total:
Fatalities -- by month:
Sources: Dept of Defense; AP; The Wall Street Journal On-Line article: The Fight For Iraq; ICasualties.org
WHERE WAS THE PROOF? rev: 10Sep07
by David R Carlson
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Prior to the March 2003 assault on Iraq, there never was real proof that Saddam/Iraq had serious, deployable weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- the type of proof that was
given to the American public during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, before initiating the successful naval blockade of Cuba, when Russia was forced to remove nuclear capable missiles from the island.
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In 1962, as a young officer in the US Navy, I was shipboard and actively participated in the naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Among other duties, I was the ship's crypto officer (with a top secret clearance) -- in charge of encrypting and decrypting all the operational messages passing between the captain of our ship, and higher command.
As a result, I knew without a doubt that there were WMD being placed in Cuba by the Russians. I saw the reconnaissance pictures of missile silos, construction crews, mobile launchers, and the missiles themselves. I was also privy to transcripts of intercepted communications between the Cubans and Russians. President Kennedy showed these pictures to the American public, and today you can find them on the internet.
Fast forward 40 years to year 2002 when President Bush began rushing the USA to war with Iraq -- spring boarding off the fear caused by 9/11 -- claiming WMD, purchase of tubes for nuclear centrifuges, links to al-Qaeda, attempted purchases of yellowcake, etc. I immediately asked myself, and others -- Where's the proof...? With the military technology of 2002, where were the photographs of WMD (using satellites, planes), and transcripts of intercepted conversations? All we saw were a couple of pictures of what were purported to be mobile chemical/biological weapons labs (trailer trucks) in the middle of a desert. And, what about radiation patterns/readings of nuclear activity? It is easy to detect radioactivity from facilities making nuclear weapons using nucleonic 'sniffers' dangling from low flying planes, drones or helicopters
My conclusion -- Bush had absolutely no credible proof of WMD, etc, and our Congress was negligent in not demanding same.
Instead, the USA was hyped into another war (we hadn't even begun to finish the war in Afghanistan) by the administration's use of: Fear (another 9/11, mushroom cloud, smoking gun); and Hype ('piece of cake', 'slam dunk', 'dancing in the streets', 'shock & awe', 'minimal casualties').
Reason for the rush to war? An opportunistic move to: Gain control of Iraq's oil; and the Utopian but hopelessly naive idea that the Administration could implant a USA style democracy in Iraq. If one doesn't believe that Oil was the primary raison d'etre for The War, then what justified the Administration's rational that Iraq oil revenues would pay for both: our costs of the war; and the rebuilding of Iraq. It will never happen.
Point is -- Saddam most certainly could have been taken out by other means -- a combination of careful planning, force and diplomacy -- and definitely without the tremendous loss of life and the maiming/wounding of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, and others -- that is continuing unabated to this day -- Forgetting the one trillion dollars and more it is going to cost the American Taxpayers in the long run.
Today's (10Sep07) Bush/Patraeus Report confirms we are definitely Staying The Course, mired in a war with No End In Sight....
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For an Excel file (.xls) with the numbers that developed these graphs, send an email to:
I welcome your comments and/or questions
David Carlson
Fresno CA
PS: Stay tuned for an addition on how to best stabilize Iraq without 'Staying the Course', nor hastily withdrawing on an arbitrary timescale. The solution is the Hard Partitioning of Iraq. Starting off with 'freeing' Kurdistan -- the only real friends we have in the region.