Another Sad Milestone

As of today, January 1, 2007, 3000 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq. Another 46,880 U.S. military personnel have been injured. The New York Times has posted an interactive feature called Faces of the Dead which gives you an interesting perspective on the loss of these brave Americans.

Iraqi deaths could range between 74,000 and 655,000, we cannot be sure. Over 12,000 Iraqi police officers have been killed as of 12/24/06.

As a ridiculous way of wrapping up this awful statshot of the war, here's the Bob Woodward article about how the late President Gerald Ford "very strongly disagreed" with President Bush, V.P. Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the war in Iraq. Ford told Woodward, "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction. And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do." I particularly find this excerpt fascinating: "Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest."

He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

link: New York Times' Casualties of War: Faces of the Dead
link: New York Times' An Appreciation: From Father to Son, Last Words to Live By
link: Washington Post's Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq
link: Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
link: BBC Article on 12,000 Iraqi policeman killed