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I heard Guiliani say the same thing in front of the 9/11 commission. There were family members heckling him in the audience and he stood by his words - the fact that under 3000 people died in the WTC attack is amazing. It shows how good of a job the first responders did. The numbers could have been much, much higher.

In any sort of nightmarish disaster like that, there are always going to be things that you can critique with your 20-20 hindsight. But the evacuation of the WTC was a job well done. It wasn't perfect, but definitely well done.

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I was setting you up for Moses thing . . . .

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What difference does it make if it's a miracle? Maybe it's an absolute miracle that 25,000 soldiers haven't been killed in Iraq. You are so emotional about the damn WTC thing. If you were not just not me, but that thing, I would ask you if you would be more outraged about the places that exposed workers to asbestos, knowing it would fuck them up, if they had darker skin.

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I think you were just temporarily blinded by the glare of the sun reflected off that 20 trillion high penny stack.

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In relative terms it could have been worse, in other words. OK. But 850 soldiers dying is a big deal. Just like our inability to sustain the current levels of deployment without a stop-loss policy is a big deal. Not unprecedented, not worthy of panic and despair, but a Big Deal nonetheless. To me it seems like things have gone worse than expected, esp after the stated prewar expectation was that we'd be drawn down to 30,000 troops by now.

FWIW, I haven't really been one of the "it's a mess" people on this board, and I truly respect and admire the wide ranging jobs our troops have undertaken over in Iraq, but to call it an all-caps success in my mind lacks, um, perspective.

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Go back to your post-lunch nap, you aren't making any sense whatsoever.

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You want me to clarify - so be it:

"...If anything, I'd say the minimal loss of life is quite the SUCCESS"

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Why are you so upset about people killed and injured at the WTC but hate the regulation and plaintiff's lawyers that discourage companies from killing even more people?

ETA I will now to go my post-work nap, or whatever you want to call it.

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I think we're talking past each other, and that's probably due to my inability to sort out why your original post bugged me so much. Anyway, apologies.

Didn't I order a drink a while ago? Where is that waitress?

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No one said it wasn't a big deal. Just like no one said it wasn't a big deal when almost 3000 people died on 9/11.

It is just that it was expected that there would be US casualities in Iraq. No one in their right mind thought otherwise. And hopefully all who enlist in our all volunteer military realize that they can be deployed to a war zone if they enlist.

Does anyone know what the pre-war estimates were regarding the number of US casualties? For both the invastion and post-invastion period.

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I saw 3,000-10,000.

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Saying that it's a mess in no way disrespects the troops over there, or the many fine things we have done there.

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I agree. Those were two separate thoughts.

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When did Paigow steal your login?

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I just did a quick google and didn't find any official reports, but retired general Barry McCaffrey was estimating a few thousand in a pre-war NYT article.

Interestingly, the World Health Organization was estimating 250,000 injured Iraqi civilians and the UN was estimating 500,000 injured Iraqi civilians.

Oh and pre-war, anal-fixated Bob Graham claimed that if we invaded Iraq, there was a 75% chance that there would be a retaliatory terrorist attack on US soil.