Total of U.S. wounded in Iraq tops 10,000

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Of the 10,252 total wounded, the Pentagon said 5,396 were unable to return to duty and 4,856 sustained injuries that were light enough to allow them to resume their duties. The total is normally reported each week, but the Pentagon had not updated the figures since Dec. 22, when the number of wounded stood at 9,981.

The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq stood at 1,335 today, according to the Pentagon.

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Due to improved medevac ability and body armor, it's probably safe to say that the vast majority of the half that could not resume their duties in this war would have been dead in, say, the Vietnam War. This is not to lessen the sacrifice these soldiers have made--indeed, many of these people are now disabled or in pain for the rest of their lives. Rather, my point is that the relatively low number for US deaths in Iraq tends to obfuscate the true scale of carnage over there. Indeed, longtime British Middle East reporter Robert Fisk revealed in an interview on Democracy Now a couple of days ago that Iraq is in utter chaos right now, as if the assassination of Baghdad's mayor didn't make that utterly plain: all that's left to be done, says Fisk, is for the US to find a way out without losing face--he predicts eventual negotiations with the insurgents that will leave them in power. If US withdrawal is inevitable, shouldn't we just leave now, and spare some lives?

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