Iraq, Three Years Later

Posted on Feb 21, 2006

UPI:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20—One month shy of three years into the Iraq war is a good time to take stock of the situation. Is the world better off today after U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003? Is Iraq better off? Are the United States any safer? Are its allies in Europe and elsewhere more secure?

Hardly.

The toll in human lives is a heavy one: more than 100,000 Iraqis killed according to a 2004 study by Lancet, the British medical journal. Other sources place the toll higher, at 250,000. However, more conservative estimates are provided by Iraqbodycount.org, an independent London-based non-profit volunteer organization. They offer two sets of numbers: a high of 32,041 and a low of 28,427. Either way, it’s a lot of bodies.

Full story

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.