Tsunami of Blood

How many troops does the USA have in Iraq?

The first thing we want to do is understand the issue in terms of “Vietnam equivalent” troops. The reason is that the Bush Administration has been hiding the manning level, by using “contractors” instead of men and women in uniform to perform many functions, which were performed by troops throughout the Vietnam War. As a result, in terms of Vietnam equivalents, here’s my calculation (with links pointing to the basis for my calculation):

140,000 uniformed service members acknowledged to be in Iraq

94,000 uniformed service members moving to Iraq “in early 2007” as “replacements”?

Have we heard of anyone coming home since January 1, 2007? When you look at the link, read it all, because 37,000 men and women are hidden at the bottom, and are not mentioned in the 57,000 noted in the headline. Also, we have a little revisionist history going here, because in its original form, this article said these people were moving in January. Why was it changed? Whisper who dares!

21,500 uniformed service members in President Bush’s “surge”

100,000 contractors, performing jobs previously performed by military personnel

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355,500 Vietnam Equivalents

But the Congressional Budget Office says that the actual number of the President’s “surge” is 35,000 to 48,000, because of the need for Combat Service Support Troops. This means that the number could be in the range of 369,000 to 383,000.  Has anyone asked how many additional civilian contractors?  Are those in the additional numbers of the CBO, or are there still more?

Oh, and I haven’t said anything about Afghanistan, on the eastern border of Iran, where the President retained another brigade for four more months.

Is it just me, or do we have the old carnival version of the “shell game” going here? Whisper who dares!

Since the main combat deaths we hear about are roadside bombings and troops in garrison attacked by suicide bombers, what are all of these people doing? Whisper who dares!

Of course, this is not counting troops located in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and at sea.