The Nuclear Option

How American’s Feel

· Most Americans surveyed in a poll by AP-Ipsos Public Affais say they do not think any country, including the United States, should have nuclear weapons. That sentiment is at odds with current efforts by some nations that are trying to develop the weapons and by terrorists seeking to add them to their arsenal.
· North Korea claims it has nuclear weapons now and is making more. Iran is widely believed to be within five years of developing such weapons. Security for the nuclear material scattered across the countries of the old Soviet Union remains a major concern.
· 52 percent of Americans think a nuclear attack by one country against another is somewhat or very likely by 2010. Also, 53 percent think a nuclear attack by terrorists is at least somewhat likely.
· Two-thirds of respondents say no nation should have nuclear weapons, including the United States. Most of the others surveyed say no more countries should get the weapons.
· Overall, 47 percent of those surveyed approved of dropping the bombs on Japan while 46 percent disapproved.
· The threat from nuclear terrorism is greatest, analysts say, because terrorists with nuclear weapons would feel little or no hesitance about using them. That's why those who monitor nuclear proliferation are so concerned about securing weapons stockpiles and dismantling weapons as quickly as possible.

For more on public opinions on nuclear weapons, see Ipsos-Public Affairs: http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com

Nuclear Facts

Dollars the US spends per day on maintaining its nuclear arsenal: $100 Million -- approximately what the International Atomic Energy Agency spends in one year to safeguard nuclear materials worldwide.
Number of nuclear weapons in the world: 30,000
More than 4,500 warheads remain on hair trigger alert.
The US and Russia possess over 95 percent of all nuclear weapons. More than 4,500 warheads remain on hair-trigger alert.
Pounds of fissile material necessary to build a crude nuclear bomb: 8-10
As little as 8 lbs of plutonium is needed to build a bomb. A missile is not needed to deliver such a device; a tugboat or truck could be used.
Number of countries capableof developing nuclear weapons: 44
44 countries have access to the fissile material and technology to build nuclear weapons. With the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty jeopardized, nuclear weapons could quickly spread.
Number of accidents, false alarms, and malfunctions involving U.S. nuclear weapons before 1980 according to the U.S. government: 32 Several of these have put us on the brink of accidental nuclear war.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/experience/the.bomb/broken.arrows/intro.html

128,000+: Estimated number of nuclear warheads built worldwide since 1945. All but 2 percent of these nuclear warheads have been built by the United States (55 percent or 70,000+) and Russia (43 percent or 55,000+).
$3.5 trillion: Amount the United States spent between 1940 and 1995 to prepare to fight a nuclear war.
$27 billion: Amount the United States spends annually to prepare to fight a nuclear war.

Source: Nuclear Facts at a Glance From the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) www.nrdc.org

Who Has What?

Nuclear-Weapon States:
China: More than 100 warheads.
France: Approximately 350 strategic warheads.
Russia: 4,978 strategic warheads,1 approximately 3,500 operational tactical warheads, and more than 11,000 stockpiled strategic and tactical warheads.
United Kingdom: Less than 200 strategic warheads.
United States: 5,968 strategic warheads,1 more than 1,000 operational tactical weapons, and approximately 3,000 reserve strategic and tactical warheads.
Defacto Nuclear-Weapon States:
Three states—India, Israel, and Pakistan—never joined the NPT and are known to possess nuclear weapons.
India: 45 to 95 nuclear warheads. The Pentagon projects that New Delhi has a relatively small stockpile of nuclear weapons components that could be assembled and deployed “within a few days to a week.”
Israel: Between 75 to 200 nuclear warheads.
Pakistan: 30 to 50 nuclear warheads. The Pentagon believes Islamabad stores its weapons in component form and could assemble weapons “fairly quickly.”
States of Immediate Proliferation Concern:
Iran: No known weapons or sufficient fissile material stockpiles to build weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN body charged with verifying that states are not illicitly building nuclear weapons, concluded in 2003 that Iran had undertaken covert nuclear activities to establish the capacity to indigenously produce fissile material.
North Korea: One to two nuclear weapons, according to CIA estimates. Pyongyang also possesses enough spent nuclear fuel that could be reprocessed into fissile material for as many as six nuclear weapons.
Syria has forsworn nuclear weapons as a state-party to the NPT and its nuclear research reactor is subject to IAEA monitoring. The Pentagon stated in 2001 that Syria is not pursuing nuclear weapons. However, the CIA cautioned in late 2003, “broader access to foreign expertise provides opportunities to expand its indigenous capabilities and we are looking at Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern.”

For more on what states possess nuclear weapons, see: Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance April 2005 http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat.asp?print

What is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The Treaty represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.
Opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force in 1970. On 11 May 1995, the Treaty was extended indefinitely. A total of 188 parties have joined the Treaty, including the five nuclear-weapon States. More countries have ratified the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, a testament to the Treaty's significance.
To further the goal of non-proliferation and as a confidence-building measure between States parties, the Treaty establishes a safeguards system under the responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Treaty promotes cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear technology and equal access to this technology for all States parties, while safeguards prevent the diversion of fissile material for weapons use.
The provisions of the Treaty, particularly article VIII, paragraph 3, envisage a review of the operation of the Treaty every five years, a provision which was reaffirmed by the States parties at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.
The 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) met at the United Nations in New York from 24 April to 19 May 2000. The Conference was the first to be convened following the Treaty's indefinite extension at the 1995 Conference.

Source: UN website, http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/treaty/’

Bunker Busters

Also known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), the bunker buster is portrayed as a weapon that could burrow into the ground before detonating, greatly increasing its ability to destroy hardened underground targets.
Supporters argue that the bunker buster is needed to attack hard and deeply buried targets (such as leadership bunkers or WMD production facilities) in countries of concern, thereby deterring or defeating such nations.
Critics reply that:
The bunker buster would lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons and prompt other nations to develop nuclear weapons to deter U.S. attack.
Nuclear weapons (including the bunker buster) cannot be engineered to penetrate far enough into the ground to prevent nuclear fallout. To prevent fallout, a nuclear weapon with approximately the same yield as the one dropped on Hiroshima would need to be buried 850 feet in the ground. Currently, the best weapons casing available can barely penetrate 100 feet.
The yield of the bunker buster would be much larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The bunker buster would have a yield of 100KT; the Hiroshima bomb was 15KT.
If a weapon with a yield of one kiloton was detonated some 35 feet underground(close to current capability), it would put one million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air, and create a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York.
The bunker buster is regarded as a “tactical” nuclear weapon. Developing such a weapon would make it difficult to encourage Russia to dispose of its arsenal of over4,000 tactical nuclear weapons.
New nuclear weapons serve no practical role in countering the threats from extremists who are willing to use terrorist tactics. You can’t nuke a network or an extremist ideology.

For more points on Bunker Busters, see : www.wand.org

“Owning” Our Own Society -Talking Points

“To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.”

-President George W. Bush's second inaugural address, January 20, 2005

"...if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country. The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America, and the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country."

-President George W. Bush, June 17, 2004


Statements on the “Ownership Society” from Ford Leadership for a Changing World Award recipients:


“To President Bush, an ‘ownership society’ is one where Americans face retirement and the labor market on their own … But to some of us, a true "ownership society" is a society that is ‘owned’ by its people, where citizen-created institutions like Social Security, or cooperative enterprises assert people power over the market.”

- Abby Scher, Director, Independent Press Association

"If we are to talk about a real ownership society, it has to be more than just another retirement account invested in a mutual fund. The closest thing we've come to a real ownership society for the 21st Century is employee ownership through Employee Stock Ownership Plans and cooperatives. That's what we ought to be talking about."

- John Logue, Ohio Employee Ownership Center, Kent, Ohio

“It is baffling to me that the social security of the elderly and others should be an individual "choice." That is where the word "ownership" is dangerous. The real messages are: Everyone out for him/herself. Society has no responsibility to share in the concern for the livelihood or health or well being of others. 'Que cada quien se rasque con sus propias unas.'(Literally, that everyone scratch themselves with their fingernails. Figuratively, that everyone out for his/her own interests, without regard to other fellow humans). The Bush administration is cutting a tremendous amount of funding for housing development projects, which sharply affect the already meager affordable housing programs. Talk about doublespeak!”
- Diane Bustamante,
“The goal of an ‘ownership society’ is laudable, but at least two critical elements are absent from President Bush's presentations on this matter. First is the extraordinary level of concentration of ownership in the US, in almost every realm of life: Food, seed and agricultural companies, media and communications, banks, retailers, etc. This seems to me an overwhelming counterweight to small individual accounts. Secondly, these very same corporations are constantly urging -- quite successfully -- increased levels of consumption among consumers, effectively precluding any substantial improvements in our savings rates. Taken together, these two realities undermine the very foundation of a broadly-based ownership society.”

- Anthony Flaccavento, Executive Director, Appalachian Sustainable Development, Abingdon


Is the “Ownership Society” Really Dr. King’s Dream?

“President Bush’s Ownership Society goals may appear at first to be consistent with Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of economic opportunity for all races, but during the first Bush administration, the United States actually moved farther away from Dr. King’s vision.” - State of the Dream 2005: Disowned in the Ownership Society

The employment and income picture has gotten worse for people of color since 2000, eroding the progress made during the 1990s:

In 2000 the African American unemployment rate reached a historic low of 7.1%. It has been 9.9% or higher since January 2002.
Latino / Hispanic unemployment rates also dropped from 8.0% in 1988 to 5.7% in 2000, but rose again in the last four years.
After slowly increasing from 55% of white income in 1988 to 65% in 2000, Black median income fell again to 62% in 2003. For the first time in 15 years, the average Latino household now has an income that is less than two-thirds that of the average white household.
Throughout the 1990s, poverty rates fell across the board, declining fastest for African Americans and Latinos. But since 2000, more than one third of that progress in reducing poverty among African-American families has been erased, as 300,000 African-American families fell below the poverty line from 2000 to 2003.

Private retirement income and inheritances remain scarce among people of color.

African Americans have less in private pensions and retirement accounts, and so depend more heavily on Social Security. They would be more affected than whites by any privatization plan that made benefits uncertain.
Previous generations of race-based discrimination leaves a legacy for people of color, who are far less likely to get inheritances than white Americans.

For more on the “State of the Dream 2005: Disowned in the Ownership Society” see: http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2005/StateoftheDream2005.pdf

Where does our income go?

Child care costs have been rising much faster than both income and inflation, although the consumer price index increased only 29% during the 1990s, fees charged by child care centers and nursery schools shot up by 56%.
The costs of college have been rising even more dramatically. The Average tuition at public four year universities increased from roughly 4% of a middle class family income in 1980 to almost 7% in 2000.
Housing expenses – the biggest single item in the family budget – have placed additional pressure on family budgets. The median sales price of homes increased from $23,000 in 1970 to $62,000 in 1980 to $147,800 in 2001. In constant dollars the increase was over 60%.
A 2002 federal commission concluded that almost 28 million households – one in four – spend more on housing than the 30% of income commonly considered affordable.
The share of housing income used to pay rent has been trending upward; it rose roughly 11% between 1984 and 2001. Nearly 40% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on shelter, including about one in five who spend half or more of their income.
A 2001 survey by the Pew Center for the People and Press found that over a quarter of respondents (27%) said they didn’t have enough money in the past year to afford health care – up from 15% in 1976.
More than 43 million people were without health insurance in 2002.

Taken from America Beyond Captialism, by Gar Alprovitz, 2005


Business Ownership

More Americans now work in firms that are partly or wholly owned by the employees than are members of unions in the private sector. (p81) In 2003 there were 8.4 million workers in private sector unions and 8.8 million workers working in ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) employee owned firms.
There are approximately 11,000 ESOPs now operating in communities in all regions of the United States. Asset holdings total more than $400 billion. The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEOO) estimates that total worker holdings (of all forms of stock ownership and stock options) reached approximately $800 billion in 2002 – that is, roughly 8% of all US corporate stock.
Studies undertaken by the National Center for Employee ownership, by several teams of economists, and by the US General Accounting Office all confirm that combining worker ownership with employee participation commonly produces greater productivity gains, in some cases over 50%.

Taken from America Beyond Captialism, by Gar Alprovitz, 2005

Minorities’ share of the total U.S. population increased from 21 percent in 1982 to 32 percent in 2002. The share of businesses owned by minorities rose from 6.8 percent of all U.S. businesses in 1982 to 15.1 percent in 1997.
American Indians/Alaska Natives were the fastest growing business group. The number of American Indian/Alaska Native–owned businesses grew tenfold between 1982 and 1997, followed by Hispanic-owned businesses, the number of which quadrupled during this period.

For more statistics on business ownership and growth see, “An Analysis of Employer Data from the Survey of Minority-Owned Business Establishments by Ying Lowrey, Ph.D.” Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business, Washington, D.C
http://www.doleta.gov/reports/papers/Minorities_in_Business2001.pdf

Taxes and Income

The average after-tax income of the top one percent of the population more than doubled, rising from $298,900 to $631,700, for a total increase of $332,800, or 111 percent. (CBO adjusted these figures for inflation and expressed them in 2002 dollars.)
By contrast, the average after tax income of the middle fifth of the population rose a relatively modest 15 percent, or $5,700, reaching $43,700 in 2002. The average after-tax income of the poorest fifth of the population rose just 5 percent, or $600, over the period.
The top one percent of the population received 11.4 percent of national after-tax income in 2002, up from its already-large 7.5 percent share in 1979. (Each percentage point of after-tax income is equivalent to $62 billion in 2002 dollars.)
In contrast, the shares of national income received by various groups of low- and middle-income people all fell. The middle fifth of the population received 16.5 percent of the national after-tax income in 1979, but 15.8 percent in 2002. The bottom fifth received 6.8 percent of such income in 1979, but 5.1 percent in 2002.

For more information on income levels and tax brackets see, “What New CBO DATA Indicate about Long-Term Income Distribution Trends” By Isaac Shapiro 3/7/05
http://www.cbpp.org/3-7-05tax.pdf


Housing

Census Identified Ethnic Groups
(2000 Census)
Owner Occupied
Renter Occupied
All ethnic groups
66.2%
33.8
White Alone
71.3%
28.7
Black Alone
46.3
53.7
American Indian Alone
57.5%
42.5%
Alaskan Native Alone
57.3%
42.7%
Asian Americans-All Races
53.4%
46.6%
NHPI-Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders
45%
55%
Hispanic of any Race
45.7%
54.3%


In March, 2005: The USDA Rural Development announced that over $4 billion in single-family housing funds are available to assist more rural families become homeowners as part of President Bush's Ownership Society initiative. Over 10 percent of these funds will help families build their own homes and bring homeownership opportunities to families living in the Colonias, underserved areas and Federally designated communities

Taken from USDA News Release No. 0081.05 by Ed Loyd and Tim McNeilly
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/03/0081.xml

Healthy Community, Healthy Environment

Air Quality

Over the past 20 years, the air quality levels for pollutants have improved in the United States; however, about 160 million tons of air pollution were released into the air in 2002, and approximately 146 million people in the United States lived in counties that did not meet EPA standards.
Fifty-seven percent of Whites, 65 percent of African Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanics live in counties that failed to meet at least one of the EPA’s outdoor air quality standards.
Over 86 percent of African Americans, 91.2 percent of Hispanics and 70.3 percent of Whites live in urban settings, which are typically at higher risk for air pollution.
One study found that Hispanics are more than twice as likely as either African Americans or Whites to live in areas with high levels of particulate matter. Thirty-four percent of Hispanics, 16.5 percent of African Americans, and 14.7 percent of Whites live in such areas.

Pollution Exposure

Exposure to indoor or outdoor air pollution can pose a wide range of health risks for many populations. Those that are most vulnerable include children, the elderly and people with chronic lungdisease. For example, people who suffer from asthma experience periodic attacks of breathing difficulty and lung inflammation, often in response to environmental irritants.
Culturally diverse communities…are more often affected by debates over environmental health and government efforts to improve it. For example, asthma occurs disproportionately among low-income and urban communities, especially in inner-city African American and Hispanic populations. Therefore, controlling outdoor and indoor exposures is an important protective measure, especially for these groups.
People of color were found to be more likely to live near industrial sources of air pollution in two recent separate investigations looking at 1990 data on toxic air pollutants.
A report found that three of the five largest hazardous waste landfills in the United States are in African-American or Hispanic neighborhoods.

For more on the impacts of pollution on health in communities, see the American Lung Association, “Lung Disease Data in Culturally Diverse Communities: 2005”
http://www.lungusa2.org/embargo/lddcdc/LDD.pdf

Weighing Iraq: Costs of War, Price of Freedom--Talking Points

Total Number of Fatalities and Wounded in Iraq:

The mystifying numbers of the fallen Iraqi soldiers and civilians: who is keeping count?

US and coalition forces death toll and wounded. When is enough, enough?

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Iraqi Body Count: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/

Bringing Saddam to Justice

How legitimate will the tribunals prove in Iraq with out the presence of the International Courts? Can Iraqi courts bring the Baathists and Saddam to justice?

· War-crimes trials for Saddam Hussein and 11 of his Baathist Party cohorts, accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations, will begin within the next two to four weeks.

· A judge and lawyer for the special tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein and former members of his government have been assassinated.

· The suspects are accused of crimes that span 30 years and a broad array of charges - from genocide against the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south of Iraq, to human rights crimes against the countries of Kuwait and Iran.

For more on the problems and perils of brining war-criminals to justice see, “” By Faye Bowers at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0223/p03s01-wogi.htm

And “2 Members of Hussein Tribunal Are Assassinated in Baghdad” By ROBERT F. WORTH at http://www.gadsdentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20050302&Category=ZNYT&ArtNo=503020344&SectionCat=&Template=printart

Reconstruction

Education-- Major Accomplishments to Date:

· Rehabilitated 2,405 schools countrywide.

· Printed and distributed 8.7 million revised math and science textbooks to grades 1-12 by mid-February 2004.

· Awarded five grants worth $20.7 million to create partnerships between U.S. and Iraqi universities. Through these partnerships, Iraqi universities are rebuilding infrastructure; reequipping university facilities; participating in international conferences; attending workshops and refresher courses; and reforming curriculum.

Health--Major Accomplishments to Date:

· Vaccinated over 3 million children under five and 700,000 pregnant women with vaccination campaigns that included monthly immunization days.

· Provided potable water for 400,000 persons each day in Basrah city and 170,000 persons in Kirkuk and Mosul.

· Provided skills training for 2,500 primary health care providers and 700 physicians.

Water and Sanitation-- Major Accomplishments to Date:

· Nationwide: Repaired various sewage lift stations and water treatment units.

· Baghdad: Expanding one water treatment plant and constructing another to increase capacity by approximately 70 million gallons per day; rehabilitating sewage treatment plants.

· South: Rehabilitating parts of the Sweet Water Canal system, including repairing breaches, cleaning the main reservoir, and refurbishing 14 water treatment plants around Basrah serving 1.75 million people.

For more on information on reconstruction accomplishments see “United States Agency for International Development (USAID)” http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/

Iraq’s Women and Children

International Women’s History Month is March. How will Iraqi Women be treated under the new gov’t?

· A report by British NGO Medact revealed in November that Iraqis will feel the brunt of the US-British invasion for years and “maybe generations” to come with the “alarming deterioration” of the health care system in the war-ravaged country.

· The Iraqi health ministry warned in November that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has nearly doubled since the US invaded the country in March 2003.

· The United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) had warned that the number of children who suffer from diarrhea, Iraq's number one killer of infants, has more than doubled under occupation.

· Women and girls in Iraq live in fear of violence. The current lack of security has forced many women out of public life and constitutes a major obstacle to the advancement of their rights. Since the 2003 war, armed groups have targeted and killed several female political leaders and women's rights activists.

· Three wars and more than a decade of economic sanctions have been particularly damaging to Iraqi women. Under the government of Saddam Hussain, they were subjected to gender-specific abuses, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, or else targeted as political activists, relatives of activists or members of certain ethnic or religious groups.

· Gender discrimination in Iraqi laws contributes to the persistence of violence against women. Many women remain at risk of death or injury from male relatives if they are accused of behavior held to have brought dishonor on the family.

For more on the condition of children in Iraq, see “Iraqi Children Pay the Price of "Freedom" by Saleh Amer, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-02/22/article04.shtml

For more on the status of women, see, “Decades of suffering, Now women deserve better.” From Amnesty International http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde140012005

What do Iraqis want?

1. When Should Forces Leave? January 2005: 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiites favor US withdrawal “either immediately or after an elected government is in place.” (Zogby)

2. Attitudes toward US forces January 2005: 53 percent of Sunni Arabs say ongoing attacks are a legitimate form of resistance. (Zogby)

3. Attitudes toward the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi government October 2004: 55 percent say Interim Government does not represent the interests of people like them “very much” or “at all”. Nearly 50 percent find the government to be ineffective; 43 percent find it to be effective – a sharp decline since the government took office in June 2004. (International Republican Institute.)

4. Is life better or worse? August 2004: 46 percent of Iraqis say their situation has improved since the fall of Hussein, 31 percent say it has grown worse, and 21 percent say it is unchanged. (International Republican Institute.)

For more on, Iraqi attitudes on occupation, US withdrawal, Iraqi governments, and quality of life see Project on Defense Alternatives Compiled by Carl Conetta http://www.comw.org/pda/0501br17append.html

Soldiers and the Long Journey Home

· Of more than 5 million veterans treated at VA facilities last year, from counseling centers like this one to big hospitals, 48,733 were from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan

· Of the 244,054 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already discharged from service, 12,422 have been in VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms associated with PTSD.

· More and more in Iraq, combat surgeons say, the wounds involve severe damage to the head and eyes -- injuries that leave soldiers brain damaged or blind, or both, and the doctors who see them first struggling against despair.

· Accurate statistics are not yet available on recovery from this new round of battlefield brain injuries, an obstacle that frustrates combat surgeons.

o Judging by medical literature and surgeons' experience with their own patients, "three or four months from now 50 to 60 percent will be functional and doing things," said Maj. Richard Gullick. "Functional," he said, means "up and around, but with pretty significant disabilities," including paralysis.

· Thirty-one Marines committed suicide in 2004, all of them enlisted men. The majority were younger than 25 and took their lives with gunshot wounds. There were 24 suicides in 2003, and there have not been more than 29 in any year in the last 10.

· The Marine Corps suffered a 29 percent spike in suicides last year, reaching the highest number in at least a decade, with the demanding pace of military operations likely contributing to the deaths, says one top-ranking U.S. Marine.

For more about the homecoming soldiers, see “Trauma of Iraq War Haunting Thousands Returning Home” William M. Welch at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-02-28-cover-iraq-injuries_x.htm

And “The Lasting Wounds of War” by Karl Vick at: http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4414

For more on the rise in suicide, see “Suicides in Marine Corps Rise by 29% Fast Pace of Operations Are Believed to Contribute” by Ann Scott Tyson http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51933-2005Feb24.html

Journalists

Journalistic Risk: the dangers reporters face often prove too terrifying to get the job done—kidnapping, suicide bombers, car bombs, insurgents attacks. How many reporters have been kidnapped / killed?

· A total of 37 journalists are confirmed dead since the US launched its preemptive strike against in March 2003.

· The number of presumed dead would bring the total to over 40.

· In 2004 alone 23 journalists were killed in Iraq. 16 have been Iraqi

· According to Wall Street Journal Reporter Farnaz Fassihi: "I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in anything but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling."

For more on the dangers that journalists face, see the Committee to Protect Journalists http://www.cpj.org

And, “Reporting from Iraq is a Deadly Job” By Zlatica Hoke http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysis/2004-10-22-voa78.cfm

Financial Costs

How much are we paying to conduct this stabilization of a new Iraq? What else could this money pay for? How much more will we need to spend?

The bill so far: $146.6 billion. February 14 request from the President: $61 billion more

· Estimated cost of war to date to every U.S. household: $2,000

· Average monthly cost of the Vietnam War, adjusted for inflation: $5.2 billion

· Average monthly cost of the Iraq War: $5.8 billion

· Amount contractor Halliburton is alleged to have charged for meals never served to troops and for cost overruns on fuel deliveries: $221 million

· Kickbacks received by Halliburton employees from subcontractors: $6 million

What $207 billion could have paid for in the U.S.:

· Affordable housing units: 1.86 million

· Health care for uninsured Americans for one year: 47 million

· Scholarships for university students: 40 million

· Head Start slots for a year: 27 million

· Port container inspectors: 3 million

The $146 billion already allocated could pay for 2 years worth of:

· Food for half the hungry people in the world and

· A comprehensive global AIDS treatment and prevention program and

Hot facts from the study by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy In Focus http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/failedtransition/transition.pdf