Does 30,000 Mean Anything to Bush?

Matthew Rothschild in Common Dreams

"On Monday, for the first time, Bush acknowledged that his Iraq War has taken a large toll on the Iraqi people. But he fobbed it off as if it were nothing.

Taking questions after his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council, Bush was asked right out of the chute how many Iraqis have died.

Here’s the exchange:

“Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I’d like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.”

“Bush: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say, 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops.”

Bush may have severely underestimated the total number of Iraqi dead.(more)