The Stunning Iraq Index

David Morris, a former Marine who has been embedded in Iraq as a reporter, compiled the following Iraq Index for the June 9th issue of The Nation. The numbers speak for themselves:

Percentage of Iraqis displaced by war: 20

American cost of the Iraq occupation per second (as of March 2008): $4,563.18

Total number of Coalition personnel in Iraq at the height of the "surge" (including all contractors and civilian support personnel): 343,100

Total number of actual U.S. combat troops in Iraq at the height of the "surge" (excluding support personnel): 38,000

Number of police officers in New York City: 37,000

Number of embedded journalists during March 2003 invasion: 775

Number of embedded journalists during March 2008: 23

Number of U.S. killed and wounded, Hue City, Vietnam, 1968: 147; 857

Number of U.S. killed and wounded, Fallujah, Iraq, 2004: 104; 1,110

Number of Iraq veterans diagnosed with PTSD: 300,000

Number of troops stop-lossed: 58,300

Number of troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001: 1,668,000

Number of troops deployed after being declared medically unfit: 43,000