Today in Iraq

WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, JULY 29, 2006 (PART ONE) Note to Readers: Due to scheduling conflicts and Blogger related problems, Saturday’s regular post will not be up until very early Sunday morning for our European readers or very late Saturday for those of you in the States. In the meantime here’s something to chew on: SCORECARD Iraq – Security Approximate number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq: 126,900 Percent of coalition forces contributed by the U.S.: 86 Approximate amount appropriated by Congress for Iraq operations so far (including funding authorized by the Fiscal Year 2006 Emergency Supplemental): $320 billion Approximate amount spent by the U.S. in World War I (in inflation-adjusted dollars): $205 billion Approximate amount the U.S. is spending in Iraq per month in Fiscal Year 2006 (including operational and investment costs): $8.1 billion Approximate amount the U.S. spent in Iraq per month in Fiscal Year 2003 (including operational and investment costs): $4.4 billion Number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq: 2,547 Number reported wounded by the Defense Department: 18,988 Number of National Guard soldiers killed in Iraq through July 1, 2006: 364 Number of National Guard soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War: 97 Number of Iraqi military and police killed since training began (June 2003): 4,898 Number of journalists killed in Iraq: 74 Number of journalists killed in Vietnam: 63 Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (November 2003): 5,000 Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (June 2006): 20,000 + Estimated number of foreign fighters in Iraq in May 2003: 100 Estimated number of foreign fighters in Iraq in May 2006: 1,500 Number of civilian casualties in Iraq since U.S.-led invasion: 20,600 – 37,200 Estimated number of 88 Iraqi military battalions that are capable of operating independently: 0 Number of multi-fatality bombings in June 2004: 9 Number of multi-fatality bombings in June 2006: 57 Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2004: 45 Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2006: 90 Iraq – Political Amount requested by the President in his Fiscal Year 2007 budget for democracy promotion in Iraq: 0 Percent of Iraqis who say they are optimistic about their future: 30 percent According to a recent World Public Opinion poll, percent of Iraqis who approve of a timeline for U.S. withdrawal: 70 percent Degree of corruption in Iraq on the Transparency International 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (on a scale of 0-10, with 0 representing “highly corrupt” and 10 representing “highly clean”): 2.2 Number of corruption cases that have been filed since the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity was established in 2004: 1,400 Approximate number of Iraqi families internally displaced as of February 2006 (prior to February 22 bombing of Shiite shrine in Samarra): 3,000 Approximate number of Iraqi families internally displaced as of June 2006, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration: 21,731 or 130,386 people Number of Iraqi civilians killed in May, according to data from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue: 2,669 Number of Iraqi civilians killed in June, according to data from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue: 3,149 Civilian death toll in Iraq in June 2006: 100 per day Rank of Iraq in Minority Rights Group International’s list of peoples most under threat from persecution, discrimination, and mass killing: 1 The number of passports issued in the past ten months, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees: 2 million Percent of Iraq’s professional class that has left the country since late 2003: 40 percent Iraq – Reconstruction Amount of the $13.5 billion pledged by the international community for Iraq’s reconstruction that has been dispersed (as of March 2006): $3.5 billion Amount of taxpayer money spent by Halliburton that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has deemed either excessive or insufficiently documented: $1.47 billion Amount of Iraqi reconstruction funds the military has failed to account for (according to the Defense Department’s inspector general): $8.8 billion Amount, of the $20.9 billion appropriated for the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF), that the U.S. has spent as of July 2006: $14.9 billion Percent of Iraq reconstruction funds used for security: 25 Number of days before all funding will be obligated and no new work orders will be allowed under the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund: 71 Anticipated reconstruction gap (difference between estimates of what is needed to rebuild and what the international community has pledged in aid) that the new Iraqi government will face: $18-28 billion Percent decline in Iraq’s GDP in 2005: 3 Average oil output for 2006 (barrels per day): 2.0 million Average oil output prior to invasion (barrels per day): 2.5 million Bush Administration’s prewar projections of Iraq’s post-war oil output (barrels per day): 3 million Average oil output for 2005 (barrels per day): 1.83 million Iraq’s lost oil revenues in 2005: $6.25 billion Percent of Iraq’s economy represented by oil revenues: 94 Amount U.S. taxpayers have invested in Iraq’s oil industry reconstruction: $2 billion Approximate number of guards who actually were trained in protecting Iraq’s oil equipment, of the 21,000 originally targeted: 11,000 Electricity capacity in Iraq (in megawatts) prior to invasion (March 2003): 4,500 Electricity capacity in Iraq (in megawatts) in July 2006: 4,200 Approximate amount U.S. taxpayers have invested in Iraq’s electricity sector: $5 billion Percent of Iraqis who had access to sewer service prior to invasion: 24 Percent of Iraqis who had access to sewer service in February 2006: 20 Number of Iraqis who had access to potable water before invasion: 13 million Number of Iraqis who have access to potable water, according to the April 2006 SIGIR report: 8 million Number of the planned 142 health care clinics that actually will be completed under the Army Corps of Engineers $243 million program: 20 Number of the planned 136 sanitation and water projects that will be completed: 49 Number of Iraqi physicians registered prior to the invasion: 34,000 Number of Iraqi physicians who have been murdered or fled the country since the invasion: 14,000 Infant mortality rate in Iraq: (Middle East average is 37, sub-Saharan Africa average is 105): 102 Terrorism Days since September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden has remained uncaptured: 1,772 Days after bombing Pearl Harbor that Japan surrendered to U.S. forces: 1,365 Number of significant global terrorist attacks reported by the State Department in 2003: 175 Total number of worldwide global terrorist attacks reported by the U.S. Government’s National Counterterrorism Center in 2004: 3,194 Total number of worldwide global terrorist attacks reported by the U.S. Government’s National Counterterrorism Center in 2005: 11,111 Percentage of total worldwide suicide attacks that have occurred since 9/11: 81 percent Percent of more than 100 of America’s top foreign policy experts (bipartisan group) who say the U.S. is not winning the war on terror: 84 percent Percent of those experts who believe that Bush Administration policies are undermining the war on terror: 81 percent Rank of Iraq on the “failed states” index: 4 Rank of Afghanistan on the “failed states” index: 10 Rank of Iraq among all nations as a training ground for terrorists: 1 Percent of top FBI jobs in the Washington area that currently are vacant (including counter-terrorism experts): 20 Percentage of respondents in a recent Financial Times/Harris poll conducted in Spain, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy who identified the U.S. as the greatest threat to global stability: 36 percent