Two reports of interest, both of which will get thrown into the trash bin by the Republicans as being politically motivated.
The first, more outrageous report states that 650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed post-invasion. Our own estimates have been somewhere around 30,000-50,000. Even if it is only half-right, then our assessment is grieviously wrong.
"A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred," David Brown reports for the Washington Post in Wednesday's edition.
The Post notes that this figure, "produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government."
"It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December," Brown writes. "It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.
Update: Here's a roundup of how the right the reality-deniers are trying to discredit the report.
Secondly is a Veterans Administration report filed under FOIA that was "delayed" for nine-months regarding the disability claims for those deployed in the Greater War on Terror. Apparently 1/4 of all veterans are applying for disability.
Twenty-percent of those getting a claim for disability are 50% disabled or better.
Update: More on disability from All Spin Zone:
So, that gives you an idea of how the sliding scale works – lose a leg, you're 40% disabled. I think this guidence paints the VA statistics in even sharper relief, because imagine the trauma required for a 60% or 80% disability rating. Like I said, we're not talking about bandaids and boo-boo's. 32,240 GI's have suffered an injury / disability that's as bad or worse than an amputated leg.
