U.S. and British government officials often declare insistently that the war against Iraq was "worth it," despite the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, because the tyranny of Saddam Hussein has been brought to an end.
But it is difficult to support this conclusion with a cost-benefit analysis because the costs, which continue to be paid, are often not reported and may be unknown. In particular, "the Department of Defense does not publicly release numbers on Iraqi civilian deaths, Iraqi security forces deaths, or medical evacuations of U.S. military personnel outside of Iraq," as noted in a new report from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS report therefore presents a range of estimates, of varying degrees of reliability, to help fill that information void. See "U.S. Military and Iraqi Casualty Statistics: Additional Numbers and Explanations," April 26, 2005:
Congress earmarked $20 million for Iraqi civilians who suffered losses as a result of the Iraq war in the final House-Senate conference agreement on emergency supplemental appropriations for FY 2005 (H.R. 1268, section 2108).
That financial assistance is to be designated the "Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims Fund," in memory of aid worker Marla Ruzicka who died in a car bomb attack on April 16 and who "inspired the creation of this program and a similar program in Afghanistan," the conference report stated.
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