Tomorrow, March 19, 2007, will mark the four-year anniversary of the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Four years ago tomorrow, I was sitting in a newsroom at an NBC affiliate in South Florida cringing, as some of the people around me cheered the commencement of "shock and awe." The atmosphere at that time, was "we're gonna get the sonofabitches that got us on 9/11" ... that and the resplendant graphics and potential ratings coup for the network that was gonna keep the tube sizzling for months! This was a television war -- complete with dramatic images (Saddam's statue being toppled by around 100 Iraqis, whom we later learned were itinerant young men gathered in Firdos Square by American troops, while less than a mile away, their fellow Iraqis were fighting a guerilla war against coalition soldiers and taking bombardment by U.S. airstrikes... Jessica Lynch bravely emptying her rifle as she and her fellow support troops were captured by the enemy ... of course, that turned out not to be true either ... and of course, that "shock and awe" that was supposed to take out Saddam Hussein and his sons on the first day of the conflict, and by such drama, ending it. Well, we all know how that turned out...)
Four years later, what we're left with are the deaths, of Americans and Iraqis, the mistakes, the bungling, the tawdry execution of Saddam, the protests, the politics, and the excuses, which continue to be marketed on behalf of the Bush administration by such reputable characters as Tom Delay, who along with Richard "there's be a boulevard in Baghdad named for George W. Bush" Perle was demolished this morning on Meet the Press -- despite the best efforts of Tim "Scooter's Alibi" Russert to save them -- by retired Navy Admiral and current U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) and Win Without War director Tom Andrews on the subject of whether the Iraq war made sense in 2003, and whether our remainig there makes sense now. (Best like of the morning came from Andrews, who said he'd much rather take military advice from Admiral Sestak than from Delay...)
Which brings us back to the body count. So far, The Pentagon has confirmed the deaths of 3,204 American servicemen and women as of March 17th. Add to that the 14 pending confirmation which were reported over the last several days, and you're left with a U.S. military death toll of 3,218. On the Iraqi side, estimates range from around 60,000, to 600,000, depending on which study you believe, plus some 2 million refugees (remember when Don Rumsfeld congratulated himself on there not being a refugee crisis? Those were the days...)
If you map out the U.S. casualty count, you find the numbers are heaviest in the blue states, with the exception of Texas. The highest rate of death among American servicemen to date has been in California, where 334 Americans have died in service during the war, followed by Texas (289), Pennsylvania (156), New York (145), Ohio (142), Florida (130), Michigan (125) and Illinois (119). These are the "red states" of the casualty count map -- those with 100 fatalities or more. The states with the lowest numbers happen to be in the middle part of the country -- the politically red part of the map (the deep and middle South included), where political support for the war remains strongest. In fact, the lowest body count of all is in Washington D.C., where so far 3 brave troops have been lost -- one less than in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, and two less than American Samoa.
Perhaps it's a crass way of looking at it, but one wonders if Joe Lieberman is able to be as enthusiastic about the war as he is because his state has lost 24 troops as opposed to 240, while places like Barack Obama's Illinois and Hillary Clinton's New York have borne a much heavier burden (keeping in mind that even one serviceman or woman is too much to lose, for that person's family, and for the country.)
Taking a closer look at Florida (home to the sixth largest casualty count), since that's where I live, the deaths traverse the state, from Apopka to Daytona to Carol City, Gainesville and Hialeah, but the largest numbers have been troops from Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa (the latter being a big military town).
Breaking down the deaths by ethnicity, you find that just over 74 percent of the American dead were white, another 11 percent Latino, 9.7 percent Black, and 1-2 percent apiece were Native American, Asian or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (another 2 percent undetermined). Black enlistment has plunged over the last five years, as distrust of the Bush administration has kept many young Blacks from enlisting, even after the initial enlistment rush across all ethnicities after 9/11. (Fatalities by sex are more outsized -- women make up just 2.2 percent of the dead, though that translates to 72 American women, plus four women from other countries.)
What's even more outsized, when you look at the statistics, is the toll the war has taken on the United States Army and Marines, which have borne the brunt of this war, losing 1,681 and 788 members respectively, thus far. That's not unusual because this has been a ground war, but what's also disturbing about the numbers, is the heavy toll on the Army National Guard (412 deaths), Army Reserve (106) and Marine Reserve (118), which are so critical to our security here at home. It should not be ignored, of course, that the Navy (58 - including several Navy Seabees from here in Florida), Naval Reserve (13), Coast Guard (1), Air Force and Air National Guard (2) have also taken losses in the war, and their sacrifices are just as important, and just as painful for their families.
And then there is what you might call the "mercenary war." Don Rumsfeld as head of the DoD presided not just over the inexplicable "light force" approach to waging a ground war, but also the Bush administration obsession of privatization, which included the deployment of private contractors to do many of the jobs that used to be done by members of the military. As such, 389 civilian contractors (some former military, some just entrepreneurs or truckers) have lost their lives in Iraq, some in dramatic fashion, like the four contractors who were murdered, burned and then hung in Fallujah, or those beheaded by insurgents, but most without much fanfare in the U.S., and with only their families to mourn. Many would argue that most died unnecessarily, mostly at the hands of roadside bombs, but increasingly, due to small arms fire, or more disturbingly, helicopter shoot-downs by insurgents.
If you really want to be disturbed, look at a chart of fatalities caused by IEDs month to month, and watch how they've skyrocketed since the supposed end of the war when Bush declared "mission accomplished" on May 1st, 2003 aboard the Naval carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln. There have been 37 such attacks so far in March, more than took place in any month in the first year and a half of the conflict.
Meanwhile, this from the National Security Network:
Washington, DC-Six senior retired military officers today sent a letter to Capitol Hill expressing support for immediate action to protect our troops in an effort supported by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the National Security Network.
Text of the letter:
Dear Members of the 110th Congress,
We are writing to urge you to take immediate action to protect our troops.
We are concerned that the plan to deploy additional troops to Iraq, coupled with the serious readiness deficiencies, have left our armed forces in a state of emergency.
The situation in Iraq, grave and deteriorating, is troubling to us both as former military commanders and as American citizens. Top military officials have consistently acknowledged that the repeated and lengthy deployments are straining the Army, Marine Corps and Reserve and National Guard forces, and are taking a heavy toll on critical warfighting equipment.
We urge you to put pressure on the Iraqi government to take control of their own country and relieve the burden from American troops by setting a clear and definite timeline for a phased and deliberate redeployment of American combat forces from Iraq by no later than August 2008. We urge you to ensure that our troops meet the readiness standards required to protect Americans both at home and abroad. We urge you to ensure that those who serve in the name of this country receive the health care and support they need when they return to us.
Thank you for your consideration of our views. We look forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Lieutenant General Robert G. Gard, Jr. (USA, Ret.)
Former President of the National Defense University
Brigadier General John Johns (USA, Ret.), PhD
Former Combat Arms Officer; Professor, national security strategy, National Defense University
Colonel Richard L. Klass (USAF, Ret.)
Captain Lawrence Korb (USNR, Ret.)
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics), 1981-1985
Major General Mel Montano (USANG, Ret.)
Former Adjutant General of New Mexico
Lieutenant General William E. Odom (USA, Ret.)
Former Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Army, and former Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, 1977-1981 We'll have Dr. Korb on the morning show tomorrow to discuss the state of the war, along with James Paul of the Global Policy Forum, which is issuing a damning report on the state of the war to date, as well as D.C. businessman Yasir Shalal, a board member of the Iraqi American Alliance, who has family still in Iraq, as well as family who has fled the country to neighboring Jordan or elsewhere to escape the chaos the war has caused.
And last but not least, the latest poll numbers, starting with CNN:
The CNN poll of 1,027 adults was conducted March 9-11 by Opinion Research Corp. The sampling error for the poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
According to the results, 35 percent of Americans are confident about the war, the poll said. When the war began, 83 percent of Americans expressed confidence in the campaign.
Similarly, 30 percent of those polled this month said they were proud of the war, as opposed to 65 percent who expressed that sentiment in 2003.
The poll also showed that 33 percent of Americans are afraid of the war and 55 percent are worried by it. Those percentages are roughly the same as they were four years ago.
Sunday's results came on the heels of a Saturday release indicating that years of war had whittled away at Americans' support for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When the Iraq war began, 68 percent of Americans said they felt the situation in the country was worth fighting over. Now, 61 percent of those surveyed say it was not worth invading Iraq, according to the poll.
That survey of 1,027 adults by Opinion Research Corp. was conducted by telephone March 9-11 as well. It has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll showed that support for the Iraq war had dwindled to 35 percent. In 2004, support for the war was about 56 percent. Last year, the number dipped to 37 percent, and today about 35 percent of Americans say they support the war, according to the poll.
Support for the war in Afghanistan also has seen a considerable decline as 88 percent of those polled in 2001 said they were behind the conflict. This month's poll indicates that support lingers around 53 percent.
Also, according to the poll, about 55 percent of Americans feel the war in Afghanistan is "going badly," according to the poll. BTW, the CNN poll also found that a majority of Americans favor Congress, not the president, setting Iraq policy at this stage. Other poll results on support for the war:
- NBC News/WSJ (3/2-5, A/D) 27/67
- Newsweek (2/28-3/1) - 27/67
- CBS/NYT (2/23-27) - 23/71
So is there any good news for the Bush administration and their shills friends in Congress? Well there's this: the war is almost as toxic for Democrats as it is for them.
Labels: Bush administration, foreign policy, Iraq, Iraq war, military, polls, shock and awe |
