U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, during a surprise visit to
According to the group Just Foreign Policy, more than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion and occupation, now entering its sixth year. A survey by British polling agency ORB estimates the number of dead at more than 1.2 million.
Nobel laureate and former chief World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz recently published a book with co-author Linda Bilmes of
The authors say the Bush administration has repeatedly "low-balled" the cost of the war, and has kept a set of records hidden from the
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, close to 4,000
"The war in
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than four million Iraqis are displaced from their homes, with roughly half of them outside of the country.
The Iraqi Red Crescent estimates that one in every four residents of
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report Mar. 17 that millions are still deprived of clean water and medical care.
The international aid group Oxfam International released a report last July that found that four million Iraqis were in need of emergency assistance. It found a 9 percent increase in childhood malnutrition, and that 70 percent of Iraqis lacked access to safe drinking water.
The average home in
Oil exports, from which
Unemployment, already 32 percent before the invasion, has vacillated during the occupation between 40-70 percent, according to the Iraqi government.
With more than a million dead, more than four million displaced, and another four million in need of emergency aid, a third of Iraqis are displaced, in need of emergency aid — or dead.
All this Cheney calls a "successful endeavour".
Soon after he said that, a suicide bomber killed at least 32 and wounded 51 near a mosque in the holy Shia city Kerbala, south of
These areas even fly their own flags; Sunni areas fly the old Iraqi flag, Shias use the new version, and the Kurds have their own flag.
Ethnic and sectarian cleansing strategies, backed by occupation forces, have virtually eliminated all mixed areas of
Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain, also in
"The surge is working," McCain told reporters, referring to the troop build-up in
With "enduring"
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