by James Glaser
March 23, 2006

There might not be a civil war, but CBS News reports that yesterday 100 insurgents stormed a jail 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, killed 19 policemen, and a courthouse guard, and then freed 33 prisoners.

A U.S. soldier was killed by small-arms fire while patrolling in western Baghdad.

Police found the bodies of 15 people dumped in and near Baghdad.

A bomb struck a coffee shop in northern Baghdad, killing three and injuring 23.

In southeast Baghdad a roadside bomb destroyed a small bus killing four pilgrims returning from the holy city of Karbala.

A policeman in a joint American-Iraqi patrol was killed in Baghdad.

A car bomb exploded at a check-point in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad killing another policeman.

Jordanian authorities closed their border with Iraq.

Iraqi police and human rights groups say 11 people were killed in a dawn raid on a village just north of Balad.

This is just one day of the reported violence in Iraq by one news agency. Remember Iraq has only about 8%, of the population of the United States, and just imagine what this amount of violence would do to our country. Iraq has violence like this or worse every day, but George Bush sees no sign of civil war, just your ordinary everyday war.

On top of this no civil war statement, we find a new report by the Courier-Post of New Jersey written by Lorraine Nash, who tells us that the number of wounded in the Iraq war is set at 17,702 by the Pentagon, but "Basically, that's everybody who has been through the major military hospitals, like Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There are some who are not counted in that roll-up, and the numbers are not broken down by State."

If you are a "walking-wounded" and don't get checked into one of the Major military hospitals, you don't get counted. Most likely if you get hit, but are treated in the field and returned to duty, you don't get counted either.

As of March 15th, in the first two weeks of the month, 218 American troops have been reported wounded. That breaks down to 111 wounded who returned to duty within 72 hours and 107 who were wounded who did not return to duty within 72 hours.. You can find these numbers at www.icasualties.org.

Add to the number wounded the 22 American troops killed so far in March, and we have a total of 240 killed and wounded. We don't know for sure if that is the total number of Americans wounded or not. That averages out to I American killed a day and 15 wounded every day.

The number of Iraqis killed and wounded is a total mystery, News reports put the number killed per day at 50 to 60. That would add up to 1100-1320 killed so far this month. The wounded could very easily be in the thousands.

Technically speaking George Bush might be correct in saying there is no civil war going on in Iraq, but the amount of violence tells us that every person in that small county is feeling the pain from it. Bush talks about American troops being in Iraq until the end of his term (three years), and one has to wonder how much longer the people of Iraq will be able endure what is happening to their country.

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