[Shadow_Group] Fw: War Crime

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War Crime
by Paul Craig Roberts
December 8, 2004
 
On December 6 Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld promised four more years of
death and destruction in Iraq. Assuming the war continues to cost the US
taxpayers $6 billion per month - not including reconstruction costs, fat
no-bid contracts for the Bush administration's major contributors, and
replacement costs of the military equipment that is being blown apart and
worn out - that comes to $288 billion. Add that sum to the $149 billion
the war has already cost US taxpayers for a total of $437 billion.
 
Turning to the human toll, from March 20, 2003 to December 7, 2004
(approximately 21 months) the Pentagon says 1,280 US troops have been
killed and 9,765 wounded in Iraq. The Pentagon's wounded figure conflicts
with the report from the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, that
as of Thanksgiving week the hospital has treated almost 21,000 Americans
injured in Iraq. According to the hospital, more than half were too badly
injured to return to their units.
 
Assuming no escalation in the insurgency, a continuation of four more
years of war would result in another 2,925 US troops being killed for a
total of 4,205. Using the Pentagon's wounded figure, 22,320 more US
troops would be injured for a total of 32,085. Using the US military
hospital's figure, another 48,000 US troops would be wounded for a total
of 69,000.
 
Assuming the US is able to keep 138,000 US troops in Iraq during Bush's
second term, US dead and wounded (Pentagon figure) would comprise 26% of
the US force in Iraq. Using the military hospital's figure, US dead and
wounded would comprise 53% of our entire army in Iraq.
 
The present military manpower system cannot provide replacements for
these losses. Current troop strengths are being maintained by calling up
reserve and national guard units and by extending soldiers' tours of duty
beyond the contractual period, a practice that US troops are contesting
in court. Tens of thousands of careers, marriages, and family finances
are being disrupted and destroyed by the commitment of reserve and
national guard units to war in Iraq.
 
What is Bush achieving in return for such horrendous costs?
 
Bush has destroyed our alliances and the good will of a half century of
US foreign policy.
 
Busy has created an insurgency where there was none.
 
Bush has destroyed US prestige in the Middle East and reduced America's
support among Middle Eastern populations to the single digits.
 
Bush has made Osama bin Laden a hero and recruited tens of thousands of
terrorists to his ranks, while simultaneously alienating Middle
Easterners from the secular puppet rulers we have imposed on them.
 
At a minimum Bush is responsible for between 14,619 and 16,804 Iraqi
civilian deaths during the 21 months since the invasion. Compiled from
hospital, morgue, and media reports, these figures understate civilian
deaths. In keeping with Islam's quick burial requirement, many Iraqis
were buried in sports fields and in back gardens during protracted US
assaults on urban areas. A recent report in the British medical journal,
The Lancet, estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since March
20, 2003. This figure does not include the large number of Iraqi deaths
from the embargo and US bombing for more than a decade prior to the US
invasion.
 
Projecting the reported Iraqi civilian deaths for four more years of US
occupation produces a figure of 51,621 civilians killed as "collateral
damage." Projecting the Lancet's figure produces a figure of 328,571
civilian deaths by the end of Bush's second term.
 
Then there are the civilian injured, for which there appear to be no
figures. If we assume the same ratio of killed to wounded for civilian
deaths as holds for the US military, the reported death figure gives a
civilian wounded figure of 392,320. The Lancet estimate gives a wounded
figure of 2,497,139.
 
The ratio of 7.6 wounded US troops for each soldier killed is probably
low for calculating civilian Iraqi wounded. US forces travel in armored
vehicles, are protected with helmets and body armor and are not on the
receiving end of artillery and massive bombs that kill everything in a
quarter mile radius. The ratio could easily be 10 or 15 wounded Iraqi
civilians for every one killed.
 
Did the Americans who reelected Bush know that the president who will
admit to no mistake is locked on a course that will squander a half
trillion dollars for no purpose other than to kill and wound between
36,290 and 73,205 US troops, with "collateral damage" to Iraqi civilians
ranging from 443,941 to 2,825,710 dead and wounded?
 
If Saddam Hussein is a "mass murderer," what does that make President
Bush and those who reelected him?
 
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts83.html<http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts83.html>
 


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