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Posted by cdubrocker on 2005-12-13 19:33:01 +0000

I read a comment from a White House press secretary, in response to a question about the number of Iraqi dead that Bush cited. He said that Bush got the number from reports being bandied about by the media. Sort of saying, well, it's not our official number, but it's your official number, from questionable sources. Is he, maybe, just trying to spin the fiction that the White House does not count the Iraqi dead?

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-13 19:41:49 +0000

It's not just the white house. I don't think any branch of US gov. keeps official numbers of Iraqi dead. This has been policy since WWI, I believe. What interests me is that the numbers help justify Bush's efforts. If Bush plainly stated how Vietnam cost almost 2.5 million lives, and Iraq cost less than 40,000, it diminishes the whole "Just like Vietnam" comparisons. Where's Cheney again?

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-13 19:50:23 +0000

There was a bit on This American Life a while back about counting Iraqi dead. Evidently, the Pentagon does not do it. Which is strange since they are trying to minimize civilian casualties, you'd think they'd try to follow up with studies that would show they are succeeding. The 30,000 is not a questionable number. That Lancet survey resulted in a confidence interval (CI) of 95% for 8,000-194,000 deaths. Which means it's just as likely that more than 98,000 people have died as under. Or that there's a ~10% chance that less than 30,000 people have died. 30,000 has got to be the lowest conceivable casualty rate for the other side (that being civilians and insurgents).

Posted by cdubrocker on 2005-12-13 20:03:51 +0000

It's "policy" to not keep the numbers, but I believe they do. When public perception of the Vietnam was was going negative, the Dept. of Defense began releasing Vietnamese body counts as a measure of progress, I believe. Which is not to say that Bush is doing the same thing, I didn't hear or read the speech, I don't know the context. Cheney...who knows. He disappears, he's omnipresent.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-13 20:05:32 +0000

First off, casualities is way different from deaths. I don't think anyone has lower than 30,000 for casualties. Second, I believe tens of thousands more Iraqis will die of dysentery, tb, and menengitis, as a result of the war. But are these "war deaths" when they happen 2 or 3 years down the road? Either way, I think that's where the varience comes in so big...

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-13 20:09:36 +0000

Deaths are what I mean, then. 50% chance that there have been at least 98,000 deaths of Iraqi nationals related to the war in Iraq as of Fall 2004.

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-15 15:00:09 +0000

ITS NOT ABOUT BUSH Has America turned a corner on Iraq? --Peggy Noonan Thursday, December 15, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST The four-part Iraq speech cycle on which the president has embarked, and that culminated yesterday in his remarks before the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, may well mark a turning in his public leadership of the war. His arguments on the war, and his assertions about what is happening on the ground and what is desired there, were more comprehensive, seemingly more candid, and thus more persuasive than he has been in the past 12 months. Coupled with today's voting it may mark a real turning point. One of the things I think the president communicated most effectively, if mostly between the lines, was the sense that some decisions a president faces don't promise good outcomes no matter which way he comes down. These are decisions that carry deep implications, and promise real difficulty. And one such was: To move on Saddam or not? Do nothing about Saddam, or nothing that hasn't been done before, and you keep in place a personally unstable dictator who has declared himself an avowed enemy of America, who will help and assist its foes at a crucial time, and who has developed and used in recent memory and against his own citizens weapons of mass destruction. Do nothing and you face the continuance of a Mideast status quo encrusted by cynicism and marked by malignancy. But remove Saddam and you face the cost in blood and treasure of invasion, occupation and the erection of democracy. It's all a great gamble. It could end with the yielding up of a new ruling claque as bad as or worse than the one just replaced. You could wind up thinking you'd bitten off more than you could chew and were trying to swallow more than you could digest. No matter what Mr. Bush chose, what decision he made, he would leave some angry and frustrated. No matter what he did, the Arab street would be restive (it is a restive place) the left would be angry (rage is their ZIP code, where they came from and where they live), and Democrats would watch, wait, offer bland statements and essentially hope for the worst. Imagine a great party with only one leader, Joe Lieberman, who approaches the question of Iraq with entire seriousness. And imagine that party being angry with him because he does. Mr. Bush chose to remove Saddam and liberate Iraq from, well, Saddam. And maybe more. Maybe from its modern sorry past. Pat Buchanan said a few months ago something bracing in its directness. He said a constitution doesn't make a country; a country makes a constitution. But today, in the voting, we may see more of the rough beginnings of a new exception to that rule. News reports both in print and on television also seem to be suggesting a turn. They seem to suggest a new knowledge on the ground in Iraq that democracy is inevitable, is the future, and if you don't want to be left behind you'd better jump in. One senses a growing democratic spirit. A sense that daring deeds can produce real progress. 'Tis devoutly to be wished, and all of good faith must wish it. In his speech yesterday the president said the obvious: that the intelligence received in the buildup to the war was faulty. He asserted that Saddam's past and present history justified invasion nonetheless. This left me thinking again about a particular part of the WMD story. I decided my own position in support of invasion after Colin Powell warned the U.N. in dramatic terms of Saddam's development of weapons that were wicked, illegal and dangerous to the stability of the world. It is to me beyond belief that he was not speaking what he believed to be true. And I believed him, as did others. Later Howard Dean, that human helium balloon ever resistant to the gravity of mature judgment, said of the administration that they lied us into war. He left no doubt that he meant they did it deliberately and cynically. But there seems to me a thing that is blindingly obvious, and yet I've never seen it remarked upon. It is that an administration that would coldly lie us into Iraq is an administration that would lie about what was found there. And yet the soldiers, searchers and investigators who looked high and low throughout Iraq made it clear they had found nothing, an outcome the administration did not dispute and came to admit. But an administration that would lie about reasons would lie about results, wouldn't it? Or try to? Yet they were candid. Wouldn't it be good if our serious journalists and historians looked into what happened to weapons that Saddam once used and once had? He abused weapons inspectors who came looking, acting like a man who had a great deal to hide. And wouldn't it be good for our serious journalists and historians to look into exactly how it is that faulty intelligence, of such a crucial nature and at such a crucial moment, came to America and Britain? It is still amazing. Oh, for journalists and historians who would look only for truth and not merely for data that justify their politics and ideology. I have been thinking about what hasn't worked, in the year since the 2004, election about the president's communication of his aims and efforts in Iraq. Or rather why it didn't work, why it seemed unpersuasive, why his statements seemed more repetitive than memorable. The president's focus was fractured, and by a number of things. By ill judgment--deciding Social Security was the new No. 1 issue. By bad luck--Katrina, etc. And by tone deafness, from "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie" to Harriet Miers. The Iraq picture got blurred. But when a political picture gets blurred, people wonder if the blurring isn't deliberate and diversionary, a way of taking everyone's eyes off the facts. Skepticism grows. And there is I think another part. It is that this White House believes way too much in spin. David Brooks noted last Sunday on "Meet the Press" that in private Bush aides are knowledgeable and forthcoming about the war--this is working, this isn't, we made a mistake here and are fixing it in this way--but that in public they rely too much on platitudes and talking points. It's true. The Bush White House treats the message of the day as if it were the only raft in high seas. Hold, cling, don't let go. Their discipline seems not persuasive but panicky. They think their adherence to spin is sophisticated and ahead of the curve, but it is not. What is sophisticated is to know that the American people have been immersed in media for half a century and know when they're being talked to by robots who got wound up in the spin shop. They are not impressed by rote repetition, cheery insistence or clunky symbolism. They see through it. When you have the president make a big speech and he's standing under the sign that says VICTORY, the American people actually know you're trying to send an unconscious message: Bush equals victory, Bush will bring victory, victory is coming. It's not so much nefarious as corny. There is the sense sometimes with this White House that they learned more from Bill Clinton than from Ronald Reagan. What did Mr. Clinton and his spinners and handlers and media mavens and compulsive line-givers teach us? "It's all about Bill." He's the man, he's at the center, he's so brilliant. He had a tough childhood, he's building a legacy, it's Bill Bill Bill. The Bush White House--and the president--have in the same way made Iraq a Bush drama. Bush won't cut and run, Bush has personal relationships, Bush is like Harry Truman, Bush will hold to his word. Look, he's landing on an aircraft carrier. It's all about Bush. Modern White Houses think the man has to be the emblem of the actions. But thinking this way is not helpful, not in any serious way, and the Bush White House should stop it. Because it's mildly creepy; because it puts too much on your guy, which means he has to be lucky for everything to work, and nothing's worse to rely on in politics than luck. And most important because it's actually not about Bush, it's about America. Ronald Reagan fought a war, but he didn't think it was about him, he thought it was about America. He didn't think it was about his principles; he thought it was about America's. He didn't land on aircraft carriers; he built them. This war isn't about Bush, or shouldn't be, or can't be if it is to have meaning, and to end in success. It's bigger than that. It's bigger than him. Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," just out from Penguin, which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-15 16:12:06 +0000

If the war is bigger than Bush, then the war's supporters should be a little more aggressive in demanding competent prosecution of that war. The keystone that allows US troop withdrawal is training of Iraqi police and military units. It's taken them 2 and a half years to figure that out? It seems that the very people who wanted war (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, for example) are exactly the people least capable of waging it. They incapacity stems from the same flaws that brought us into this war: * reluctance to objectively consider data * unshakable belief that Iraqi nationals view the US as liberators and not occupiers * overreliance on Iraqi exiles instead of Iraqis living in Iraq * unwillingness to commit the resources recommended by every government agency that has had any history of "nation building" They used all their smarts on selling the war and then became completely disinterested when it came time to actually win the damn thing. --- I con't think that cabal really cares about WMD evidence. They've been searching for excuses to invade Iraq since 1991. So, the lack of a coverup concerning the lack of WMD evidence doesn't translate into an example of the honesty of the administration. They've gotten what they wanted. Screw the rest. --- I do agree that it's refreshing to hear Bush speak candidly and honestly about the war (however briefly). It sure beats the jingoistic drivel he's usually fed.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-02-08 15:25:13 +0000

Bush's proposed cuts to SS are OK with me? I'm all for solvency (which this is not), but I think it's a decent step. Anyone else?

Posted by tgl on 2006-02-08 15:56:46 +0000

You're right in asserting these cuts will not effect the overall solvency of the program. It's just cuts for cuts sake, much like the $40 billion that recently got trimmed from the overall budget. Pols can point to them and say, "Hey, I did something!". Even if in the end, the something will have negligble effect on the overall fiscal well-being of the country.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-02-08 16:09:45 +0000

Every bit helps, though.

Posted by tgl on 2006-02-08 17:28:07 +0000

The cut as described would be $3.4 billon over the next decade. Compare that with the oft touted "unfunded liability" of $4 trillion over 75 years. This cut: $340,000,000 per year. Problem: $53,333,333,333 per year. Every bit does not help if it postpones people from realizing the magnitude of the problem.