Iraq: 2 Years and Counting

March 19 marks the two-year anniversary of "Shock and Awe." May 1 will mark the two-year anniversary of W's "Mission Accomplished" stunt on the flight deck.

At the two-year mark, 1,521 members of the American armed forces and 171 coalition forces have died in Iraq.

Since the "Mission Accomplished" photo op, 1,384 Americans have been killed in Iraq. Since the capture of Saddam, making the world safer for democracy, the number of Americans killed is 1,054. Since the transfer of power to the Iraqi government, 652. And since the recent election, 89. Current totals.

Those numbers do not begin to reflect the real toll. At least 11,000 more Americans have been wounded. Many will never recover. They have been permanently disfigured or scarred, lost limbs, or suffered lasting brain damage from head injuries.

Others come back with psychological scars that we can’t see, but which are just as real and painful. Already we are beginning to read and hear the stories of divorce, family crises, breakdowns, violence and mental anguish of returning veterans. Our society will live with those wounds and their aftermath for generations.

And then multiply that damage by 100 or 1000 and you will begin to have some idea of the magnitude of the damage we have inflicted on the people of Iraq.

More than 30 years after the last American troops left Vietnam, our veterans and our society are still paying that cost. There are more than 3.4 million Vietnam era vets who served in Southeast Asia, and 2.5 million (including me) were in Vietnam itself, although the maximum troop strength there was 540,000.

There will be hundreds of thousands of veterans of Iraq – perhaps a million -- before we are through. There are 150,000 US troops there now. Of course, unlike Vietnam, we keep recycling the same units, many of them Reserve and National Guard.

President Bush says our troops will remain there until we have trained the Iraquis to fight terrorism themselves. Remember Vietnamization? It is hard to see any light at the end of this tunnel.

As we begin a third year in Iraq, here is a tribute to those who have served and those who have fallen.