1000 Days In Iraq

In my sidebar I have a daily reminder of how long we've been in Iraq. Late last night we hit 1000 days.

On the second day of the invasion we suffered our first military deaths:

Marine Major Jay Thomas Aubin, 36
Marine Captain Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30
Marine 2nd Lieutenant Therrel Shane Childers, 30
Marine Lance Corporal Jose Antonio Gutierrez, 22
Marine Corporal Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25
and
Marine Staff Sergeant Kendall Damon Waters-Bey, 29

Since those first six were killed, at the latest count, 2145 others have also lost their lives in this war, a rate well above 2 per day. On top of that, over 15,500 soldiers have been wounded and maimed.

Meanwhile Bush has himself just yesterday put the estimate of Iraqi civilians dead at 30,000. Such an estimate is maintained here.

In addition at least 80 journalists have been killed in the conflict, as well as 289 contractors.

Meanwhile, the cost of war in dollars keeps adding up. Estimates now predict that the total cost of the war is likely to reach $500 billion next year.

For a detailed list of other numbers go here.

However, the number that I believe is going to be the one that has the biggest effect on this war will be 2006. That's the number of the year we are about to enter. By the end of the year Congress will have gone through the mid-term elections for all House seats and a third of the Senate. Republicans running for a seat will be putting increased pressure on the White House for a positive development in Iraq, and no development would be more positive to the American public than a significant pull out of U.S. troops from Iraq and a feeling that the war was being won and will soon to come to an end. That does not mean that this is strategically the best path, as a premature pull out would indeed leave behind a dangerous vacuum that is most likely to be filled by internal strife, a civil war or even an Iranian presence on Iraqi soil.

Meanwhile, we still have 1056 days to go until the next Presidential election on November 4th, 2008, which means we will reach the 2000 days in Iraq mark only two months before that. If all the above numbers double between now and then it is going to make for some very ugly campaigning indeed.