Billmon has an excellent piece discussing the deaths in Iraq and the comparative numbers being bantied around. He begins with this quote:

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

Apocryphal, often attributed to Joseph Stalin

He goes on to compare the meaning of the deaths reported in the Lancet report as well as the impact of the responsibility.

I've been thinking about this a bit. Shrub said that there have been "a lot" of Iraqi deaths, without committing to any real number based in fact and somehow as if the lower number it acceptable. He obviously thinks the Lancet numbers are exaggerated. And I love the excuse that the report is "politically motivated". So what if it is (for the record, I don't think it is)? That criticism has nothing to do with the validity of the report now does it? But I digress.

Does it really matter how many Iraqi civilians have died?

This may be obvious, but these days I'm not so sure so I'll say it anyway. I think it does. If every single life is a tragic loss, then more losses equals more tragedy.

Surprisingly, I don't think the Cheney administration is fully responsible for the deaths in Iraq. The American deaths .... yes. But not all the Iraqi deaths. Bush's incompetence certainly has been like throwing gasoline on a fire, thus his responsibility. But I really believe that an Iraqi civil war was baked into the cake back when the British set up artificial national boundaries that included vastly different groups of people who were grouped against their will. The reconciliation of this error has only been prevented by dictators and brutality, the latest of which is the American occupation.

So yes, Bush should carry many dead souls with him throughout his life. And the tragedy in Iraq has been greatly magnified by his mendacity. But not all of it is on his shoulders. Yet, I have to return to the quote:

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

Indeed, Bush's great Iraqi adventure has been tragic on an immense scale.