Pacific Views

Baghdad Stampede

Rumors of a suicide bomber in the crowd led to a stampede on a bridge whose death toll has topped 640 people. Apparently the group of Shi'ite pilgrims had already been under mortar attack during their march.

Also stampeding without let, the financial costs of this war, buried at the bottom of the article:

... The U.S. war in Iraq now costs more per month than the average monthly cost of military operations in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

The report, entitled "The Iraq Quagmire" from the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, both liberal, anti-war organisations, put the cost of operations in Iraq at $5.6 billion per month. This breaks down to almost $186 million a day.

"By comparison, the average cost of U.S. operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.1 billion per month, adjusting for inflation," it said.

Bush has just characterized this boondoggle in Iraq as a fight for democracy everywhere, compared it to WWII again and says that it's keeping terrorists from having oil. Meanwhile, US bombs took the lives of 47 people and possibly a handful of militants. We're all really hoping there were some militants, anyway.

Posted by natasha at August 31, 2005 04:21 AM | Iraq | Technorati links |