Iraq Scorecard: The War So Far

Notice that of the Iraqi's surveyed, there is no question as to whether they believe things will be better than they were before the invasion, nor whether they feel "safer" than before the invasion. The questions compare the period between 2007 and today. This is their new "normal" so perhaps within the past decade, this is as good as it gets. But for some who remember the way it used to be, I have to wonder what their opinion is of the "after."

"partydoc112:54 PM Sep 1, 2010 Every inteligence agency in the world believed Iraq had wmds. Remember they refused to allow UN inspections which would have prevented this war.Also, what about the 1 million people huissein killed. No additional attacks on our country, how about giving Bush credit for that." Most if not all of this is not true. Not every intelligence agency believed the lies about WMD. Many did not, France and Germany to name two, and I am surprised you have forgotten the additional attacks on the US (many in NYC who pass through Times Square can remind you as can passengers on at least two airlines). I do agree with you that Hussien was a major bad guy but his is just one of the hundreds of thousands of deaths to which we can give Bush credit.

They forgot to mention deaths by previous regime = 2 million

Yes! I know, "Democracy will only survive if we have an educated, informed, and involved electorate" the Greek philosopher Plato said about 2,410 years ago. No! I do not know who said "history repeats itself" although I did experience the impact those two paraphrased quotes have on our society and our personal lives. I was researching and translating my father's Greek manuscripts he left for me to translate, so that his American daughter-in-law, and his American born grand children will learn how and where they were coming from, since they could not speak Greek, and he (my father) could not speak English. While I was reading and translating his stories describing his life in Pontus of Asia Minor; their exile from their homes; the Armenian, and Hellenic Holocaust of 1916; the burning of Izmir (Smyrna) of 1922 and latter the refugee camps of Piraeus--where I was born--the war in Iraq did not appear to be much different. All the characteristics of genocide caused by relegious, cultural, finacial, and geo-political conciderations were painfully evident then, and now. It is only regretable that the United States, the American people, and so many other innocent people, have to pay the price. Sincerely, Son of Refugees

Numbers are proportional to the total. They should be presented in context to history. Compare the losses in seven years to any bad day of war in WW-I or WW-II. All death and injury is awful. All the soldiers that died and were injured in Iraq and Afhanistan were volunteers. There was and is no draft. War begets death and injury. Wars are expensive but $700 billion in seven years isn't that significient when compared with the US GDP for seven years. The Obama administration and the Democrat controlled congress are spending $ trillions in the 20 months since they took power on 1-20-09.

When you start talking about lie's with ref to weapons of mass destruction, YES it is true we did not find any there HOWEVER keep in mind that we know they had them becuase WE (AMERICA ) gave them to them to use against Irian. And Hussain used some of them on his own people,... OH YES make no mistake they had them and did a great job of delaying our inspectors long enough to move them.

An excellent summary on the price of Iraq's war. This is the only article that addressed this issue with specifics that I've come across. The area that surprised me most was the no. of press correspondents who died covering the war. In retrospect, I had a gut feeling the invasion was a mistake but left it up to the experts at that time that they knew what they were getting into. My hope is that Iraq remains a working ally of the U.S. in the future to off-set Iran's threat as the price we and everyone else paid.

Iraq war cost= 708 Billion Obama's stimulus package cost= 814 billion freedom! NO JOBS!

It makes me ill to think what $708 Billion Dollars would have done for our infrastructure, medical insurance and the general well being for the people of the United States. The so called spread of democracy has bankrupt our country and our people not to mention that 200,000 lives were lost. WMD's found 0. Accomplishments 0. The US will pull it's troops just before the civil war starts. Accountability 0.

Those statistics are freighting, especially in light of the fact that we went to war with this country under false pretenses. The first statistic is what really pisses me off, No Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. Isn’t this the reason we went to war in the first place? Isn’t this the reason President Bush, VP Chaney, Condi Rice and the rest of those war mongers sent our brave solders into battle? Four thousand plus young American lives lost for a lie. Over 100K Iraqis civilians’ dead, over $700B spent, and for what, a lie! The War mongering Neo-Cons, who lied us into war and supported Bush when the evidence said not to have the blood of the dead on their hands, but they don’t care they would do it again as long as their loved ones were not in harms way. Wake up America, these guy’s want to get back into power and do this all over again. Let’s send them a loud and clear message in November telling them that we have not forgotten how their lies killed so many.