Iraq by Numbers

By Mike Canaday

This poem is a tediously long, eye-crossing mess to follow, deliberately in immitation of its subject. This is Canaday’s poetry debut, but he assures us at Eastern Flash that he hasn’t quit his day job. He allows the naked facts to speak for themselves, and doesn’t want his message obscured by artistic devices that may interfere with readers’ conclusions.

March 19, 2003 OPERATION IRAQ FREEDOM:

Long Range missiles, Nuclear and chemical weapons, Al-Qaeda ties?
President Hussein executed.
U.N. and Iraq Survey Program find that chemical and Nuke program ceased in 1991.
No Al-Qaeda ties then.
No evidence of pre-emptive invasion found.

2004: birth of coalition counter-insurgency groups; 26,496 violent incidents.
2005: increase to 34,131 incidents.
2007: single largest attack by suicide bombers in Ramadi…….800 civilians dead.
In 2008: supposedly, “violence curtails to 40-80 percent” reports U.S. Pentagon.
Which is it-- 40 or 80?

Failed States Index: Iraq 5th worldwide in 2008, 6th in 2009.
IRAQ HUMAN DEATH TOLL:
Iraq Body Count Project (IBC)
Lancet Survey
Opinion Research Business (ORB).
Just 3 entities out of many counting the once living.
All have disparate death costs ranging between 100,000 to over 1 million Iraqis.

World Food Program Survey states 31% or 930,000 Iraqis “food insecure” in 2009.
2005: only 15.4 percent.
2007: Iraqis Household Survey states only 25% of its citizens own cars and 7.4%
personal computers.
NOW: Iraq homes have power for half the day. U.N. reports 32% have clean water
19% have good sewage, a gift of bombing.

Iraq original site of Babylon.
Iraq has the world’s 4th largest known oil reserves,
A prewar potential of 3.5 million barrels a day.
(EIM) Energy Information Administration sites post war oil production way down.
Meanwhile…U.S. gas prices at all time high, with NO Iraq oil benefits for U.S.citizens

THE U.S.DEATH BELL TOLLS:
U.S. Department of Defense claims 142,000 troops still in Iraq.
6 years go by.
From 2003-2009: suffered 4,363 U.S. deaths, with over 30,000 wounded.
4,363 U.S. deaths verses 322 coalition deaths during same time?
Lights out on perhaps 1 million Iraqis versus 4,681 coalition troops.

OVERKILL!

133 U.S. deaths this year, seven wounded. (In Iraq, they end up dead, not just wounded.)
New England Journal of Medicine claims one out of 100 solders diagnosed with (PTSD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Ohio among top 5 “death states,” with 100 dead soldiers (friends and neighbors).

MONEY
2008: over 550 billion spent in JUST Iraq according to Congressional Research
Service (CRS) (HA HA). Or 2 billion a week, 12 billion monthly.
Mr. Stigliz, former chief of the world bank and winner of Nobel Prize for economics,
says in Iraq and Afghanistan, war will reach 3 trillion dollars, 1.9 just on Iraq.
Equals 6,300 dollars per every U.S. citizen or $34,000 for family of 4.
Equivalent of our government buying 8 million houses, paying 15 million teachers, spending 530 million on child care and providing 43 million students with college
scholarships.

U.S. Depression.
$17 million on military equipment lost- Washington Post reports 20 Abrams tanks, 55
Bradley fighting vehicles, 250 Humvees, 500 mine sweeping vehicles, 109
helicopters, 18 planes and a partridge in a pear tree just to name a few.
40% of all our military assets are in Middle East.
President Obama promised during his campaign complete withdrawal in 16 months.
2011: Obama announces 50,000 of 142,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq.
To “advise and secure” is reason given.

Meanwhile… Obama just sent 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Is it worth the price to stay…do the numbers add up?