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Iraq Death Toll Rivals Rwanda Genocide, Cambodian Killing Fields

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:21:09 GMT

clipped by: Rasmus

According to a new study, 1.2 million Iraqis have met violent deaths since the 2003 invasion, the highest estimate of war-related fatalities yet. The study was done by the British polling firm ORB, which conducted face-to-face interviews with a sample of over 1,700 Iraqi adults in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Two provinces -- al-Anbar and Karbala -- were too dangerous to canvas, and officials in a third, Irbil, didn't give the researchers a permit to do their work. The study's margin of error was plus-minus 2.4 percent.

The poll's findings are in line with the rolling estimate maintained on the Just Foreign Policy website, based on the Johns Hopkins' data, that stands at just over 1 million Iraqis killed as of this writing.

These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the great crimes of the last century

800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994

(1.7 million) who died in Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields" during the Khmer Rouge era

Tags: iraq, usa, war, war on iraq

Petraeus: "I don't know" if war is making us safer

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:59:05 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Commanding General does not know if war helps US security.

Clip Source: blog.beliefnet.com

But the most stunning exchange of the day came on a question from Republican John Warner, one of the Senate's elder statesmen on military matters. The Chicago Tribune reported:

Warner concluded with a question: "Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress here as a strategy, do you feel that that is making America safer?"

Petraeus said the strategy was the best course for achieving U.S. objectives in Iraq.

"Does that make America safer?" pushed Warner.

Said Petraeus, "Sir, I don't know, actually. I have not sat down and sorted it out in my own mind."

Petraeus' response to one of the most fundamental questions for the American people about the war in Iraq—does this war make us safer—was "I don't know." Every day, young Americans are being asked to risk and give their lives for a policy that the commanding general can't say is making America safer. Extraordinary.

Tags: petraeus, john warner, iraq, terrorism, war on terror