Dean asks a simple question today regarding my post from yesterday:

David A. says it's our fault, it's up to us to fix it.

Two questions come to mind:

1) Is that fair? and

2) Okay, if it's fair, what do we do now?

One of his commenters took offense to my comment that Iraq is a more dangerous place today.... Something which seems pretty common sense based on the news reports, but to back up my point I did some googling....

While Wikipedia has the most exhaustive analysis of the War's casualties, I found this piece (A bit dated), to be very compelling:

Saddam: between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis killed (includes Kurds)

U.S. Occupation: about 100,000 killed directly or indirectly (includes Kurds)

What this means is that if the U.S. invasion has lead to an average of about 70,000 deaths per year -- based on the survey that finds Iraqi death rate increased by 100,000 over the first 18 months of the occupation -- then it is likely that Iraqis are dying at a higher rate under the U.S. occupation than they were under Saddam's regime.

If we take the estimates that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis died during Saddam's rule (1979 - 2003), it yields an annual death rate of between 25,000 to 50,000 per year under Saddam.

Based on the figure of 100,000 Iraqi deaths from the invasion, it could be said that the new annual death rate under U.S. "rule" (or lack of) is somewhere around 66,000 Iraqis per year.

It does not take a Rocket Scientist to understand that Iraq under Saddam was a dangerous place for many Iraqis. If you somehow ended up on the wrong side of the debate with Saddam or his regime, you died, it was that simple. But what percentage of Iraqis lived in that kind of fear? Today, going to the Market, sending your children to school, simply wandering outside, can lead to unexpected death. The reality of the situation in Iraq, regardless of one's position on the war, is that the country is in turmoil. And it appears that it is not just the Jihadist that the average Iraqi has to worry about.... So the blow sunshine up our collective assess set, can go on with their fantasies about Iraq the Model, we are a long way from any model other than one of Chaos!

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