American casualties in Iraq higher than acknowledged: Experts

Washington, Nov 29 : American casualties in Iraq are heavier than those during the World War II or the Vietnam conflict, US experts have said. <snip>

To say that the Iraq war to oust Saddam Hussein and the insurgency have so far cost only 1,232 killed against 405,000 in World War II and 58,000 in Vietnam is misleading, according to Gifford.

"It ignores the fact that the US had 12 million active duty personnel at the end of World War II and 3.5 million at the height of the Vietnam war compared with just 1.4 million today," he said.

The fatalities in Iraq would have been much higher but for the advances in medical treatment. In World War II, there were 1.7 wounded for every fatality, in Vietnam 2.6 and in Iraq 7.6. <snip>

http://www.teamindia.net/news/index.php?action=fullnews&id=40093

there really ARE close to 20,000 wounded americans. That's a frickin high percentage of say 130,000 troops. To get an idea of the sheer massive percentage of wounded.... think: got $1.30... and just lost .20 cents.

how long can this go on without conscription?

according to latest reports. This is adding up big time to being a collosal human toll on americans (quite separate from the obvious one on the iraqis).

...Reading "defenders" of this war pooh-pooh & say casualties are light compared to prior conflicts.

I'd thought the point of spending boffo buck$$$ on high-tech gadgets was to keep us from getting large casualties during a war.

...I gotta wonder how conservatives can be happy with that waste of money?

The last president knew how to fight a war - state the objective & let the professionals handle the details.
"...We accomplished this by prosecuting the most precise and lowest-collateral-damage air campaign in history-with no U.S. or allied combat casualties in 78 days of around-the-clock operations and over 38,000 combat sorties...."

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/1999/b10141999_bt478-99.html