from SLATE: > USA Today leads with new military figures that say a total of 19,429 militants have been killed in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad in 2003. ... The military has often been reluctant to discuss actual numbers of insurgents killed by coalition forces, but now decided to release figures after a request from USAT. Of course, there's no way to verify the data or confirm that it's even complete. But the numbers do suggest the size of the insurgency might be larger than military officials had previously recognized in public, particularly considering that there are 25,000 detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq. Last year, the commander of forces in the region said he suspected the Sunni insurgency consisted of between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters, and Shiite militias numbered in the "low thousands."<
when are they going to start calculating "kill ratios" (not to mention "marginal kill ratios")? The ghost of Robert McNamara haunts the Pentagon! -- Jim Devine / "The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous." -- Naomi Klein.
