How many more have to die?

I think the presentation in this AP piece is deceptive. Yes, more US soldiers died in March that Iraqi Army, but the Iraqi army is only one piece of the pie.

However, reading that 81 US soldiers died in March, with the consistent promises from "commanders in the field" that this new strategy will yield higher casualty rates and not be assessable for six months to a year, I think it's time to ask again, how many more must die?

Thumbnailing off current casualty rates, which is a horrible practice when talking about human lives, six months means roughly 500 more US soldiers dead, 3,300 more wounded. A year would mean 1,000 more US soldiers killed 7,000 wounded.

All of this for a strategy referred to as "a chance of success."

I would really like to ask the president his feeling for the odds of this gamble. Is it his sense that this "chance of success," now pared down to a definition of victory that says that a future Iraq will never be free of car bombs, is worth 500 or 1,000 lives?

Forced to make a one time choice, is President Bush willing to gamble those lives on what he sees as the current odds?

More broadly, is there any point or any odds where he is not willing to continue, or, like a compulsive gambler, will he continually throw more lives on the betting table?

This is what the Dems are trying to accomplish in their legislation. They are trying to force an assessment, a stop point. They are trying to get him to look up from the game and realize the losses, to look at the real costs of what he's doing.

(Not that I'm implying the President has an addictive personality.)