The first segment was a very interesting report about how the Pentagon is trying to keep alot of information from the American public as it relates to the number of non-combat casualties in the Iraq war. They interviewed a couple of Doctors as I recall who estimated the total number of Iraq so called "non-combat" casualties at around 20-30 thousand!!, which I found quite astonishing. The biggest reason the Pentagon is trying to keep the lid on this is because they are afraid that if the American public knew about this, it may change public opinion/support for this war, just the way it went against the Vietnam war. "60 Minutes" tried to get the Defense Dept. to comment on this,as far as getting an interview from somebody, but they declined. Hmmmm. They did receive a letter from the Dept. claiming that it was untrue that they were not trying to suppress this information. Yeah, right. Whatever.

I saw that story, too, and it disgusted me. It's as if these soldiers who have been wounded (or killed) in a combat zone don't matter unless it was an evil-doer who killed or injured them.

A similar debate arose when NightLine was going to read the names of only the combat dead but it was finally resolved to read the name of every soldier who had died regardless of the conditions. A father wrote to ABC had and explained that while his son had died in battle, his son's best friend had died in a truck accident while in a convoy in Iraq. The man said that his son's death is as equally important as his son's best friend's death because they were both there to do a job and had died doing that job but under very different circumstances. I agree. Death in war is death in war no matter how it happens.

[ November 22, 2004, 08:14 AM: Message edited by: bobby78751 ]

Its abundantly clear to me that the Defense Dept. and the Pentagon have bought in, hook, line and sinker, to the secrecy shroud of the Shrub administration, and thats a pity.

Good post Bobby,. that was a very sad and disturbing story. Not surprising though