116,000 civilians, 4,800 coalition troops died in Iraq 2003-2011

Will Syria top that number?

＄3 trillion! Some business people in the states must be sitting back very happy men now after grabbing some of that money.

116,000 civilians dead and a total cost to the US close to $3 trillion?? ..... Is this whatt George Bush referred to when he proclaimed "Mission Accomplished"??....

.....And 1 Saddam Hussein. Too bad Bush was duped into that conflict.

Does that "Civilian" count include all the INTERNATIONAL Civilian "Contractors" that also Risked their lives to provide necessary Combat Support; " Mission Essential "Services, to these "Coalition" Forces ( also INTERNATIONAL )? Naaaaah; THEY don't COUNT.

"Durn, that's a few more than we executed with lethal injections when I was governor of Texas!" (George W. Bush, former POTUS)

"Those slam-dunked WMDs that Saddam developed ought to be turning up any minute now..." (Dick Cheney, former VP)

At least 116,000 civilians dead. That's the most conservative number out there, other surveys make it much more, and one goes up to 1,033,000 just for the period 2003-2007. So many dead innocent people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties

The Schrub president was not duped into the war, he said god told him to invade Iraq. This was reported after war started in the Israeli press. Over 100,000 dead due to this.

All the right wing folks who are screaming for a balanced budget now in the US were all gung ho on this failed war based on lies. $3 trillion wasted and just the sound of crickets from the republicans. It is shameful. Enough to make any sane republican leave the party for the democrats. No failed wars started under Obama to date and they will not be for another four years.

Comments from the fox news crowd? Hello.

Chickenhawks from both sides supported the Iraq debacle, so it's quite disingenuous to paint it one-sided. Remember how Vietnam "Police Action" was ended? Same should go for both Iraq and Afghanistan (and any other place covert troops are). Get out. It's not for anyone but the countrymen to settle, and don't arm the regimes, nor give "aid".

The cost of war is paid by those who did not choose it.

@zur

All the right wing folks who are screaming for a balanced budget now in the US were all gung ho on this failed war based on lies.

That the current President is still in Afghanistan, the war he said, was the RREAL war to fight. Why are you liberals NOT foaming at the lips about that. You guys should be up in arms about it. All politicians lie at one time and point, even lol....liberals. Case in point, Obama's drone strike program. He'd rather bomb these suspected terrorists than taking them to Guantanamo. Water enhanced interrogation is bad, but obliterating the enemy without capturing and possibly getting some sound intel is a crime.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article13.php?id=538

$3 trillion wasted and just the sound of crickets from the republicans. It is shameful. Enough to make any sane republican leave the party for the democrats. No failed wars started under Obama to date and they will not be for another four years.

Comparing that to what Obama added to the deficit of $17T it's almost chump change and by the time he's out of office, it'll go up to $20T. All done by the Dems, Yes, NO failed wars, just failed drone programs and the continuation of the Bush's war on terror, which is now become Obama's war on terror.

Here is the list of Dems that voted for the Iraq war.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237

Wow, Shumer, Kerry and Feinstein all voted for the war. I sure hope you are as critical of them as you are of conservatives.

By the way, Big Ed, got the boot from the Obama network.

Wow this war of terror really is something, 116,000 Iraqi civilians, 25 civilians died per one coalition troop..... The Obama regime, where is the HUMAN RIGHTS, DEMOCRACY, LIBERATION, all the hypocritical jargon that the Obama Regime popugate? The US is no better than North Korea. Please keep Pacific free from US oppression.

I wonder how many Japanese civilians died from WWII, after US occupation. Number of Japanese Americans put in concentration camps in US? Oh sorry they had a more glamourous name for it back in the days of WWII.

At least 116,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,800 coalition troops died in Iraq between the outbreak of war in 2003 and the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, researchers estimate.

Thank you George W, Dick, Donald, Condi and all your Neocon buddies. Not to mention the HUGE debt you ran up undertaking this nightmare. I hope you all sleep well at night knowing this is your real legacy.

The names Bush and Blair will always be synonymous with this debacle.

As for the cost, with that money we could have had a manned mission program to Mars with the technology and knowledge benefiting the entire human race.

The estimates come from two U.S. professors of public health, reporting on Friday in the British peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.

this is as reliable as "TEPCO" Panel report that thre was no cover up at Fukushima nuclear plant.

Thank you George W, Dick, Donald, Condi and all your Neocon buddies. Not to mention the HUGE debt you ran up undertaking this nightmare. I hope you all sleep well at night knowing this is your real legacy.

They probably don't sleep any less than Obama, Pelosi and Reid do and the radical left with the debt that they continue to incur, nightmare doesn't even begin to quantify the reality of all our lives.

What a waste of life. agree with previous posters that the estimates for both the number of dead related to the war as well as the money spent by the US on it is way understated. i woner if Iraqis thing that the "democracy" (what a joke) and "freedom" (really) that they now have is worth the waste fo life and ongoing anarchy in their country.

What a waste of life. agree with previous posters that the estimates for both the number of dead related to the war as well as the money spent by the US on it is way understated. i woner if Iraqis thing that the "democracy" (what a joke) and "freedom" (really) that they now have is worth the waste fo life and ongoing anarchy in their country.

For the record and what never gets mentioned. What a lot of you liberals never realize is the violence Muslim to Muslim. Half of the people that were killed you not by allied forces, Sunni and Shiites add the Kurds to that. Unless you are dealing with reality, of course after the fall of Saddam, Shiites wanted revenge against their minority oppressors. Yes, it's easy to blame the last admin. For the war, but not one of you liberals add the sectarian fighting to the mix. Iran sending weapons to help the Shiites being smuggled in and Al Qaeda helping the Sunnis, that was a recipe in the making. So while a agree there were some mistakes that happened while US troops were stationed, lets not forget, you had two religious factions that hated each other for decades and the fall of Saddam just intensified it more so and with America in the middle of it all, it just added fuel to the fire.

Bush's war is a gift that keeps on giving. A major cause of the disparity between $810 billion and $3 trillion is that former combatants are consuming a huge amount of medical services. From PTSD to prosthetic limbs, these people will require delicate, costly care, many of them for the rest of their lives (and they tend to be young).

Ryan and his ilk in the GOP evidently think America can not afford to insure even its children. it would be a logical step for them to support abolishing the VA and instead turning to a much less costly voucher system.

What a lot of you liberals never realize is the violence Muslim to Muslim.

Uh, Bass, it was the conservatives who seemed unaware of this. Many liberals from the very beginning were sufficiently aware as to oppose the war for that very reason. It was Bush and his fellow neocons who fallaciously predicted a cake walk.

Bass. Am I a Liberal? Not sure my attitude to the mess in Iraq automatically confers that label on me. Whoever is to blame for the ongoing mess, you have to admit that it was the shock of the US intervention that set this all off. And that the figures quoted in this article almost certainly way understate the cost in human life and wasted funds.

I agree that the lives and funds lost remain greatly underestimated. And we should not forget the lives lost from the decade or so of tough sanctions prior to the invasion.

All this was based on a pack of lies. And for what? Only to make a bunch of greedy rich people even richer.

I pray that those responsible for this mess at least get long prison sentences…

“The ultimate cost of the war to the USA could be $3 trillion,”

Many countries were laughing, from Beijiang to Tehran and Moscow!

Yes, it's easy to blame the last admin. For the war, but not one of you liberals add the sectarian fighting to the mix. Iran sending weapons to help the Shiites being smuggled in and Al Qaeda helping the Sunnis, that was a recipe in the making. So while a agree there were some mistakes that happened while US troops were stationed, lets not forget, you had two religious factions that hated each other for decades and the fall of Saddam just intensified it more so and with America in the middle of it all, it just added fuel to the fire.

And who supported the minority oppressors for years until it suited them to boot Saddam out?? The USA....Sorry, you cannot just say that the US just happened to be in "the middle of it all" when they profited from Saddam for years...

"as of January 15 this year the Iraq war had cost the United States about $810 billion. The ultimate cost of the war to the USA could be $3 trillion"

How could this be? I thought Obama stopped the war for the USA last year.

I'm still waiting for justice to be served and see Bush and Blair on trial for war crimes. This would set a precedent for the US and UK and discourage such specimens from starting disgraceful, deceitful and illegal bloodbaths. I'm sure the rightwingers will gleefully tell me it'll never happen ( they like to use the word 'gonna' for some reason ). 120,800 dead with many of the families devastated is beyond description.

@laguna

Uh, Bass, it was the conservatives who seemed unaware of this. Many liberals from the very beginning were sufficiently aware as to oppose the war for that very reason. It was Bush and his fellow neocons who fallaciously predicted a cake walk.

Ok, I get it. So the Dems could've stop tried to stop the funding and yet, they didn't. I don't want to hear you liberals bash Bush and make it seem that the ground that Obama walks on is sacred. There are many things that I hated that Bush did, but compared to this president,cthe vitriol, the partisan, the inflated ego is NOT helping the country, not to mention, when a conservative points out the Obama hypocrisy on the drone strikes that Obama favors, because let's face it, he'd rather bomb the crap out of these people than to capture and interrogate suspected terrorists. This is turning into a freak show with this guy. If you didn't support the war in Iraq, your choice, no problem with it, but if you want to blame Bush, then why don't you blame the Dems that funded his war as well or is it troubling to even fathom that a Democrat can do something wrong?

Hmm, Yeah, not a WORD of concern for the " Contractors ".....I EXPECTED as much.

After all, the TITLE of this Article is for DEATHS in Iraq, and WHO they were, NOT Blame Game as all of you are doing, AGAIN, as USUAL.

At " Al Basrah ", THREE Civilian " Contractors " from Bangladesh who were caught in the open were vaporized by in incoming Mortar. At another base not far away, a Truck Driver's Living Quarters took a direct hit, another goner. Is Iraq SAFE now ?; ask any Iraqi.

A young Iraqi guy I met running the Internet provider on base replied this way when I asked him: " WHAT will HAPPEN when all the Troops LEAVE " ? ....."the IRANIANS will come BACK ". He looked VERY worried.

I figured you'd say that, Bass. You are, I assume, bright enough to be aware of the trap the GOP had created for anti-war Democrats: They would be treated as un-American in subsequent elections due to the vitriol, artisan, inflated ego of Bush and those that surrounded him.

The vote in the House ended with only six of 215 Republicans voting against the war resolution, while only 82 Democrats voted in favor; 126 were brave enough to oppose it.

Obama was not a member of the US Senate at the time and thus did not vote on the invasion, but as a state senator in Illinois, he expressed opposition, calling it a foolish decision by Bush; when he joined the U.S. senate in 2004, he voted against the surge and against additional funding for expanding the war. A major reason why Obama defeated Clinton in 2000 was precisely this vote - as such, you are wrong to imply that Democrats do not remember this.

As for the drone thing, I see you've fallen for the theme du jour. Don't worry, though - as soon as a Republican manages to regain the White House (2020?), you'll find yourself a gung-ho drone fan - just as Republicans were while Bush was in office.

@nostromo

And who supported the minority oppressors for years until it suited them to boot Saddam out?? The USA....Sorry, you cannot just say that the US just happened to be in "the middle of it all" when they profited from Saddam for years...

When you make that kind of argument, then you could say many countries profited from Saddam, NOT ONLY the US. Everyone wanted a piece of the pie and with good reason, for years, Conservatives wanted to drill in the US, but NO, the environmentalists and liberals for years protested and blocked the drilling of oil, just to save a little chipmunk? So you can't put sugar in your gas tank, so that means, the US has to do business with people that we don't like and don't like us. if you can't understand, nothing I can do for you.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/10/france.iraq

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/02/facts-on-who-benefits-from-keeping-saddam-hussein-in-power

@laguna

I figured you'd say that, Bass. You are, I assume, bright enough to be aware of the trap the GOP had created for anti-war Democrats: They would be treated as un-American in subsequent elections due to the vitriol, artisan, inflated ego of Bush and those that surrounded him.

Please spare the ego speech, there is no one alive on this planet that has an ego as big as the current commander-in-chief. You are trying to tell me, Bush was that powerful to forcibly twist their arms??

The vote in the House ended with only six of 215 Republicans voting against the war resolution, while only 82 Democrats voted in favor; 126 were brave enough to oppose it.

As I said, before, if it weren't for you liberals, we could've drilled our way out of the arms of our enemies years ago. You guys have to take part a portion of the blame.

Obama was not a member of the US Senate at the time and thus did not vote on the invasion, but as a state senator in Illinois, he expressed opposition, calling it a foolish decision by Bush; when he joined the U.S. senate in 2004, he voted against the surge and against additional funding for expanding the war. A major reason why Obama defeated Clinton in 2000 was precisely this vote - as such, you are wrong to imply that Democrats do not remember this.

How can I be wrong? Facts are facts, the Democrats that NOW so opposed to the war now, originally signed off on it. No one made them. As for Obama, he's doing a great job at killing the enemy in Afghanistan, which on this by the way, I do support, I just wish he would bring some of them back alive at least to find out their future operations, but this WH would rather blow them up and be done with it.

As for the drone thing, I see you've fallen for the theme du jour. Don't worry, though - as soon as a Republican manages to regain the White House (2020?), you'll find yourself a gung-ho drone fan - just as Republicans were while Bush was in office

I do like it, but as I just said, I want some of these thugs taken alive and whatever means you need to do to extract information to protect my country.

@jimizo

I'm still waiting for justice to be served and see Bush and Blair on trial for war crimes. This would set a precedent for the US and UK and discourage such specimens from starting disgraceful, deceitful and illegal bloodbaths. I'm sure the rightwingers will gleefully tell me it'll never happen ( they like to use the word 'gonna' for some reason ). 120,800 dead with many of the families devastated is beyond description.

Exactly, they tried it, but it'll never happen. Seriously, I know you liberals want that so bad, but it will never happen, thank god.

Never were any WMD. Never was a connection to The Base. JHC, what a disgusting waste of people. The murder of children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. I can only beg for your forgiveness Iraq.

We need to stand back and take alook at what we are doing. This is The Base's ideaology

1.Provoke the United States and the West into invading a Muslim country by staging a massive attack or string of attacks on U.S. soil that results in massive civilian casualties. 2.Incite local resistance to occupying forces. 3.Expand the conflict to neighboring countries, and engage the U.S. and its allies in a long war of attrition. 4.Convert al-Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks against the U.S. and countries allied with the U.S. until they withdraw from the conflict, as happened with the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but which did not have the same effect with the July 7, 2005 London bombings. 5.The U.S. economy will finally collapse by the year 2020 under the strain of multiple engagements in numerous places, making the worldwide economic system which is dependent on the U.S. also collapse leading to global political instability, which in turn leads to a global jihad led by al-Qaeda and a Wahhabi Caliphate will then be installed across the world following the collapse of the U.S. and the rest of the Western world countries.

Who is winning?

@Yong

Were you a film major?

Thank you Mr. Bush.

Yeah, it would have been much better to let Saddam, who invaded Kuwait, to continue to rule Iraq with an iron fist.

Some people said that it would be better to let the Iraqis overthrow their own government "when the time was right," Let's see how that works out for Syria. I'm betting that with no coalition troops on the ground their numbers will be much higher, especially when the conflict spills over into Lebanon. Either way you're looking at a lot of deaths. The question is whether you want to get involved or not.

Super,

"Some people said that it would be better to let the Iraqis overthrow their own government "when the time was right," Let's see how that works out for Syria."

In all fairness Tunisia had a nearly bloodless revolution as per the Arab Spring, probably one of the least violent in history, certainly in an Arab country. Libya fought a civil war that deposed the Mad Dog and has seen relative stability since. Egypt is too early to tell, but still none have descended into the carnage brought to post war Iraq, or as you mention, the battle currently raging in Syria.

I think what pisses most people off about the Iraq conflict is that anyone with a brain knows fine well it was sold on an unprecedented pack of lies for which not one person to this day has been held accountable for, despite several inquests that were nothing more than whitewashes. The conflict of interests that lobbied to have their war, the American Industrial/military complex were the only true winners to this date.

Humanitarian arguments, the one you yourself honourably argued at the time, were only added when the "WMD" tales, fear-mongering and howling accusations of being somehow unpatriotic for dissenting the Bush war drum weren't really working for those Americans still capable of abstract thought. That was one crazy time for America (and for those of us looking on) if you'll remember.....

One question I do keep asking is was the invasion of Iraq the catalyst for the Arab Spring? Or would it have happened anyway?

Even ten years on there are so many unknowns. The bottom line for me is that Bush 1 missed the opportunity to rid Iraq of Saddam by not having the stones to march on to Baghdad in 1991 when there was a genuine coalition. If the Iraqi's had risen against Saddam at a later date had the invasion not occurred then the UN should certainly have gotten involved. I presume though, that the mess in Iraq is why nobody has the stomach for Syrian intervention, not to mention that shitty regime in Iran, who were let's face it - the biggest winners from the US intervention in Iraq.....

One thing that is disgusting for me is that Rumsfeld was not tried for bungling the post-war occupation that badly. His incompetence in disbanding the existing army and all his other consecutive blunders could be the sole reason Iraq saw the horrific bloodshed and bitter secretarian violence post Saddam Hussein in the first place .

Madverts,

Heck, what about Bush Sr.'s incompetence in actually allowing Saddam to continue in power after he invaded Kuwait? Of course that incompetence would have to be shared by all the other world leaders...

I think I covered Bush 1's incompetence if you'd care to actually read my post....

Hey, Madverts

Heh, OK, I missed that part, but, hey, why blame just Bush 1? What about all the other world "leaders" who let Saddam off the hook?

Too many paragraphs dear boy? I'll try and dumb it down, my apologies.....

The US is the major world player, the US calls the shots. Bush 1 was more interested in being re-elected than he was about finishing what he started, I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make, or even if you have one at all.

In the aftermath of the Gulf War, just like us British abandoned the Poles after encouraging an uprising in WW2, Bush 1 failed to assist the impoverished Shiites he had encouraged them to rise up against Saddam as the devastated Iraqi army retreated.

And then believe it or not, the regime of Bush 2 years later used the subsequent massacre of the Shiites in retribution from Saddam, as secondary justification for his invasion - although I'm not expecting you to grasp these contradictions....

Madverts: I think what pisses most people off about the Iraq conflict is that anyone with a brain knows fine well it was sold on an unprecedented pack of lies for which not one person to this day has been held accountable for, despite several inquests that were nothing more than whitewashes.

I've always thought of it as faulty intelligence, and the humanitarian angle is always in play even if the leaders didn't press it enough at the time. Maybe that was just a personal thing for me. In terms of the errors made after the actual fighting ended, you'll always have a point there.

Even ten years on there are so many unknowns.

I still think a lot of it comes down to unrealized alternatives. If Saddam were alive today imagine what would be going on between Iran and Iraq right now. After signing off of his non-compliance we'd have another country to go along with Iran and North Korea in terms of a country trying to get nukes. If Iraq did go through an Arab spring Iran wouldn't just sit on the sidelines and watch, most likely they'd get involved which would have been messy to say the least. And Iran is following Saddam's blueprint with inspections to create the same kind of cloud over their program because they know some countries will not be willing to act a la Saddam. Lots of issues would replace the ones we are dealing with today.

Let's not forget that the vast majority of these deaths were caused by Muslim attacks on Muslims.

"If Saddam were alive today imagine what would be going on between Iran and Iraq right now. After signing off of his non-compliance we'd have another country to go along with Iran and North Korea in terms of a country trying to get nukes."

But we know this to be a loss-leader. Sanctions had worked in controlling Saddam's armed forces from obtaining offensive weapons. I find it amazing you're still prepared to write of the initial justification of invading Iraq as an "intelligence failure" when even before the invasion Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector commissioned to verify on the ground in Iraq at the time, declared that Iraq actually had no WMD program. French and German intelligence had also questioned the America's accusations, and there was an uproar in Britain, clearly for some reason soothed by a whitewash "inquest" that has still, to this very day, not run its' course. And anyway, this is a moot subject, as we know Hans Blix was right....Saddam had been castrated since the Gulf War....

"If Iraq did go through an Arab spring Iran wouldn't just sit on the sidelines and watch, most likely they'd get involved which would have been messy to say the least. And Iran is following Saddam's blueprint with inspections to create the same kind of cloud over their program because they know some countries will not be willing to act a la Saddam. Lots of issues would replace the ones we are dealing with today."

True, we can only speculate on the future and what might have been in a different past, although I'm unsure how there could there have been a nuclear arms race with a Saddam that couldn't even get one single fighter jet off the ground when his country was invaded in 2003?

C'mon, Iran would not have intervened before allied forces should there have been an uprising against Saddam. The West has too many interests there. The truth is they only restarted in earnest their nuclear program whilst they watched US forces floundering and pre-occupied in their self-made quagmire next-door. North Korea did the same at the same time if you remember........

If I'm willing to admit there may be a better Iraq "one day" because of the invasion, and that the positive sides of the Arab Spring may have been specific offshoot, then I'm also justified in saying the two main threats to world peace as of today from NK and Iran, are soundly because of the American led 2003 invasion, and that the invasion more or less took the threat of Allied force from the table in both counts.........

Oh, and perhaps we'd have helped the Syrians get rid of Assad long before the Islamic nuts got a foot indelibly marked on the ground. And for that I'm sure you'll agree fr whatever reason, we're sadly far too late.

""Let's not forget that the vast majority of these deaths were caused by Muslim attacks on Muslims."

Once more I feel the need to ask you, did you have a point here?

If your point was that George W Bush's invasion touched off a blaze that caused a downward spiral of previously unseen secretarian violence and misery within the borders of Iraq, then damnit you're right Sarge.

It did.