Tuesday, May 01, 2007

4 years later.....

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the Bush photo op - perhaps the greatest American propaganda stunt in history. So what has exactly been accomplished $500 billion later ?

Here's a "then and Now" from Think Progress:


May 1, 2003 Today
U.S. Troops Wounded 542 24,912
U.S. Troops Killed

139 3,351
Contractors Killed

69 916
Journalists and Media Assistants Killed

11 167
U.S. Forces in Iraq 150,000 146,000
Size of Iraqi Security Forces
7,000-9,000 334,300
Number of Insurgents less than 5,000 ~70,000 (Sunni only)
Insurgent Attacks Per Day 8 148.9
Cost to U.S. Taxpayers $79 billion $421 billion
Approval of Bush’s Handling of Iraq 75% 24%
Percentage of Americans who Believe The Iraq War Was “Worth Fighting” 70% 34%
Bush’s Overall Job Approval 71% 32%

Talk about surges....and I still sometimes can't believe it's been 4 years but then again it feels like 20.

1 comment:

Nika said...

Vietnam lasted a lot longer than that. And costed a lot more. War in Iraq looks almost like history is repeating itself - once again US is fighting someone else's war, hiding behind an ideology to pursue whatever other interest it is pursuing (i do believe in conspiracies, very much so), selling bullshit to the public and wasting both lives and taxpayer money. Nevermind all the criticism and hundreds of books written on Vietnam, all telling that the US needs to learn from its mistakes. But then, this president does not read, not really. So how would he know?