Wednesday, November 21, 2007

War no longer ?medium?

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While I have the utmost respect for anyone who's served in our armed forces, as former Navy SEAL Dick Couch has, the comment he made in the Nov. 9 Mountain Express—when he referred to Iraq as a "medium" war—is highly questionable.

The year 2007 has already proved to be the deadliest yet for U.S. forces there. So far, 3,848 service members, including 27 Idahoans, have died since the war began in March 2003—3,138 in combat and 710 in non-combat-related accidents—and 28,451 have been injured, according to the U.S. Department of Defense (www.us.dod.gov). Current Iraq civilian deaths are pegged at between 76,226 and 83,042 (www.iraqbodycount.net) and the monetary cost of the war so far is $466,346,702,426 (www.costofwar.com).

I was one of this valley's most ardent and vocal supporters of the Iraq War in its early days—back when Colin Powell's impassioned U.N. speech made many of us believe WMDs really were a huge threat there. And although I do think our recent troop "surge" has been quite effective in certain areas, I see no reason to believe the war is anywhere close to a conclusion, nor can I think of it at this point as anything even close to merely a "medium" war.

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John Pluntze

Ketchum