- It's one thing for a company to try to boost its rating
in the financial community by fudging the numbers on its annual report.
It's another thing for the U.S. Government to try to boost support for
the war by fudging (undercounting) the number of soldiers killed in Iraq.
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- In essence, they're both crimes. Stealing peoples' money
is despicable. But stealing people's lives is unconscionable. Yet, it's
going on every day, right under our noses.
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- For two years now, we've been watching the death toll
in Iraq and Afghanistan steadily rise to its latest "official"
count of 1831. But if recent reports from independent news organizations
are accurate, that number is as much a lie as the lie that got us into
war in the first place.
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- One investigative reporter, who has been keeping a close
eye on the actual number of Americans killed in Iraq, claims it's near
9800 as of June 30, 2005. He also says he lost count of the wounded at
about 50,000.
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- What we do know for certain is that a Knight Ridder newspaper
report states that a 150-bed hospital in Germany has already treated over
24,000 wounded military patients from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- Many of these severely wounded soldiers die and are never
counted. That's because administration lawyers speak the new lexicon: "He
did not actually die in combat, he died in surgery, therefore he is not
a KIA statistic." In other words, the U.S. government only counts
those who died IN Iraq, not BECAUSE of Iraq. If that doesn't bring back
what the definition of "is" is, nothing will.
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- There are certain other "sick" aspects of this
numbers game which should be told here.
- One, I believe, will particularly startle you. It concerns
our wounded soldiers. It has been said that the enemy doesn't care how
many dead we have; they prefer the severely wounded. Why? Because those
soldiers who survive with physical scars and deformities and are released
in the general population are like ambassadors to the enemy's cause. It's
our amount of wounded that will lose the war with Iraq and other Muslim
countries, not the number of our dead.
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- Another aspect is the deceptive, but different kind of
bizarre numbers tactic that the government plays on us. We don't have 140,000
troops who have seen, or are seeing action In Iraq. That number is more
like 500,000. How can that be, you say? Simple. We don't keep the same
troops there forever. We bring one set home and send another set out.
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- This rotation system allows the Pentagon to send nearly
a half million men into action, but not at the same time, nor all at once,
you understand. It's a kind of a military shell game.
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- One more slippery scheme is worth a word or two. Yes,
there are probably more casualties than admitted, but these are probably
contractors, mercenaries and Green Card soldiers who aren't yet U.S. citizens---
so Karl Rove was supposed to have said. Leave it to Rove to "adjust"
the body count, like he "adjusts" everything else.
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- We do, however, know that at the start of the war, President
Bush banned photos and visitors to the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base,
where the caskets arrive by air. The object? To cloak the number of troops
who had died, what else?
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- In 2000, a high ranking general had told a Harvard audience
that before committing troops, it must pass the Dover test; that is, "politicians
must weigh military action against whether the public is prepared for the
sight of our most precious resource coming home in flag-draped caskets."
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- In a recent broadcast of "Face the Nation",
this interview between Bob Schieffer and U.S. Senator Joe Biden about the
Dover Air Force base took place, and this excerpt from it is particularly
pertinent at this point:
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- SCHIEFFER: There's no question that the administration
has at least discouraged people from reporting on casualties killed in
Iraq.
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- Sen. BIDEN: True
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- SCHIEFFER: Do you ever go out to meet those flights
out there?
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- Sen. BIDEN: I've tried to and they will not allow
me to.
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- SCHIEFFER: Who will not allow you to?
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- Sen. BIDEN: The Defense Department
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- SCHIEFFER: What a minute. You're a United States Senator!
And they're not letting you on a military base?
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- Sen. BIDEN: I'm allow in the military base. I am
not allowed to go the mortuary. I'm not allowed to be there when the flag-draped
caskets come it. As a matter of fact, Bob, one family asked me whether
I would meet their son who was tragically gunned down in Iraq. I said I
would be honored. They wanted me to come with the minister. The commander
of the base told me that he could not allow that to happen---I'm on the
base all the time---until he cleared it with the Pentagon
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- So in order for me to accompany a mom and a dad and a
son to pick up the body of a dead son killed in Iraq. I was not just able
to do it as a Senior U.S. Senator---not like I'm new to this. I had to
get specific permission. I wanted to go when more than one Marine came
back dead, and I just wanted to show respect. And I didn't want any press
there.
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- SCHIEFFER: So you think it is the Secretary of Defense
himself who is blocking you?
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- Sen. BIDEN: Well, That's my understanding. I don't know
that for a fact, but it's not the military. It's the civilian decision
in the Defense Department that you're not allowed to be there, just to
show your respect. And let me emphasize here now. No press. No cameras.
Nothing."
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- Which proves what Dr. Sam Hoff, a history professor,
said about this whole disturbing matter: "There's one thing that doesn't
lie. Caskets don't lie."
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