dead contractors in iraq

"Based on death and injury claims filed with the U.S. Labor Department, 217 non-U.S. contractors and 113 U.S. contractors (working for U.S. companies) have been killed since the March 2003 invasion..." (link)

now that we are at the 1800 dead soldiers milestone, we can add the 113 dead contractors, and all of a sudden we are near the 2000 milestone. given that the media loves round numbers like they are shiny objects, we can be sure there'll be some serious coverage.

i reckon that we should try to get the media to cover the 2000 dead americans, rather than wait till we get to 2000 dead soldiers. (or more accurately, *as well* as the 2000 dead soldiers.)

the more bad press we can get for the president, and the war, the better.

the 1700-dead-soldier milestone was reached about june13, and the 1800 milestone will be reached today or so - about 50 days later - so theres an average of 2 per day.

dead americans so far = 1913
no of dead americans before the 2000 milestone = 87
approximate # of days till the 2000 milestone (assuming the same rate) = 44
approximate date of the 2000 milestone = september 15.

as it happens, thats not long after the president gets home from his month-long holiday.

i say we blog up a storm. ill be tracking it.

we'll probably have to hold the dead civillian count constant at 113, unless we get another Dept of Labor report in the interim, but thats ok.

(for one reason or other, the Dept of Labor report that i'm referring to didnt get any press - just the bloomberg piece and one other, according to news.google)

ps - i was previously mistaken when i thought that there were 295 dead american contractors - that number was for all contractors working for american companies.
(heres the original quote from March: "In Iraq, the death toll of contractors working for U.S. companies is approaching 300. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 295 civilians employed by U.S. companies have died so far in Iraq." my bad.)

UPDATE AUG 5 - see here

UPDATE AUG 10 - see here