Blood, stats and tears

As we honor Memorial Day, we stop to consider these most recent numbers courtesy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Number of American soldiers killed in the official 21-day war in Iraq: 115

Number of American soldiers killed since President George W. Bush declared “mission accomplished": 1,527

Total number of American soldiers wounded in Iraq: 12,350

Number of American soldiers who have sought disability benefits for physical or psychological injuries incurred in the Iraq war: 33,000

Ratio of soldiers the New England Journal of Medicine reported would return from war with post-traumatic-stress disorder, major depression or severe anxiety: 1 in 6

Approximate number of Iraqi civilian war casualties according to the British medical journal The Lancet: 100,000

Number of Iraqi civilians killed in the first two weeks of May 2005: 620

Total number of civilian casualties that occur per month in Iraq due to mines and unexploded ordnance: 20

Ratio, as estimated by Iraq’s new director of intelligence, of the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to the number of Iraqi resisters and insurgents: 3:4

Percent drop in U.S. Army National Guard recruitment since the Iraq war began: 30

Number of soldiers who, according to a recent U.S. Army survey, said they would not re-enlist: “more than half”

Percent of reservists and U.S. National Guard members that earn a lower salary when they leave civilian employment for military deployment: 30-40

Percent increase in military families requesting food stamps and subsidized meals, according to the nonprofit Army Emergency Relief: “several hundred percent”

Percent of soldiers’ funerals at Arlington National Cemetery that the administration has blocked press coverage of: 100

Percent of Americans who believe the war is “not worth fighting": 53

American federal deficit for fiscal year 2005: $427 billion

Amount spent on Iraq war in fiscal year 2005: $105 billion

Amount spent on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since September 11, 2001: $277 billion

Amount Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed the war’s total price tag would be at its outset: “under $50 billion”

Amount Jane’s Defense Industry reports the United States will spend on military defense in 2006: “as much as the rest of the world combined”

Date of the recently released “Downing Street memo” that clearly specifies the Bush administration was determined to invade Iraq long before debating it before Congress or the United Nations: July 23, 2002

First sentence uttered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she addressed troops during her recent surprise visit to Iraq: “This war came to us, not the other way around.”

The above information was compiled from various sources, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine and as individually cited.