Our National Security — By the Numbers

I don't usually post wholesale the bulletins I get regularly from Avi Rabin-Havt in Harry Reid's office. Most often the significant bits find their way into other jottings. But this one I present in its entirety. Subsets of these numbers can be used as the basis for a letter to the editor of your local press. You know what you want to say — so go ahead and say it!

Iraq

• Approximate number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq: 139,000
  
• Percent of coalition forces contributed by the U.S. 85.7
  
• Weeks since the Pentagon developed a plan to draw down U.S. forces in Iraq to roughly 40,000 by mid-2005: 91
  
• Approximate amount appropriated by Congress for Iraq operations so far: $218 billion
  
• Approximate amount spent in Iraq by the U.S. last week: $1.03 billion
  
• Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) found: 0
  
• Number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq: 1,755
  
• Number killed since the President announced the end of major combat: 1,616
  
• Number reported wounded by the Defense Department: 13,336
  
• Approximate number of medical evacuations of U.S. military personnel performed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom: 55,000
  
• Number of National Guard soldiers killed in Iraq through June 2005: 268
  
• Number of National Guard soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War: 97
  
• Number of Iraqi military and police killed since training began (June 2003): 2,751
  
• Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (November 2003): 5,000
  
• Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (June 2005): 15 - 20,000
  
• Estimated number of 107 Iraqi military and special police battalions that are capable of operating independently: 3
  

  Halliburton

  • Total amount of taxpayers' money spent by Halliburton that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has deemed either excessive or insufficiently documented: $1.47 billion
    
  • Amount charged to American taxpayers by Halliburton to build a movie library for its employees: $152 million
    
  • Number of movies in the library: 10,000

War on Terrorism

• Days since September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden has remained uncaptured: 1,404
  
• Days after bombing Pearl Harbor that Japan surrendered to U.S. forces: 1,365
  
• Number of times President Bush mentioned the "war on terror" in one month before the 2004 elections: 71
  
• Number of times in the six months since the 2004 elections: 66
  
• Chances of a WMD attack in the next ten years, according to leading arms experts: 70 percent
  
• Number of discovered cases of potential illicit smuggling of nuclear or radiological material out of the former Soviet Union last year: 200
  
• Percent of former Soviet nuclear material stockpiles secured under Nunn-Lugar counterproliferation programs: 26
  
• Number of terrorist suspects the Bush Administration claims have been convicted since September 11, 2001: 200
  
• Number that have actually been convicted: 39

U.S. Military Personnel

• Percentage of the Army's Third Infantry Division currently serving a second tour in Iraq: 50
  
• Number of 333 Army National Guard infantry, military police, armor, and Special Forces units currently combat-ready without reinforcements: 6
  
• Recruits needed per month for the rest of the fiscal year, if the Army is to meet its annual goal: 11,000
  
• Average new Army recruits per month so far this year: 5,200
  
• Highest monthly total of Army recruits this year: 8,086
  
• Number of months the Marine Corps missed its recruiting goals between January and April 2005: 4
  
• Number of months the Marine Corps missed its recruiting goals in ten years before January 2005: 0
  
• Prior to 2004, years since the Army National Guard last missed its annual recruiting goal: 11
  
• Consecutive months the Army National Guard has missed its monthly recruiting goals: 9
  
• Number of the six Reserve Components that missed their recruiting goals for the first four months of Fiscal Year 2005: 5
  
• Resignation requests submitted by Army Reserve Officers in 2001: 15
  
• Resignation requests submitted by Army Reserve Officers, September 2003-September 2004: 370
  
• Total National Guard and Reserve personnel currently deployed: 138,457
  
• Value of total Reserve Component equipment shortage, beginning Fiscal Year 2005: $15.21 billion
  
• Army National Guard equipment shortage, as a percentage of the total: 76.7
  
• Percent of Army Reserve currently ineligible for deployment because of recent deployments, lack of training, medical reasons, etc.: 84
  
• Shortage of Captains, who serve as unit-level leaders, in the Army Reserve: 52 percent
  
• Increase in the divorce rate among Army officers since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom: 317 percent

North Korea

• Estimated number of nuclear weapons produced by North Korea during the Bush Administration: 4-6
  
• Estimated number produced by North Korea from 1953 to 2000: 1-2
  
• Days since the last round of six-party negotiations: 387

Darfur

• Estimated number of conflict-related deaths per day in Darfur, Sudan: 500
  
• Estimated number since President Bush took office: 400,000
  
• Days since Secretary of State Powell first called the situation "genocide": 312
  
• Number of days after the Senate passed the Darfur Accountability Act as an amendment to H.R. 1268 that the Administration wrote a letter pressuring House Republicans (successfully) to remove it from the final bill: 1
  
• Number of Darfuris expected to require food assistance during the August-October "hunger season": 3.5 million

Homeland Security

• Factor by which passengers on mass transit systems exceed passengers on airlines: 16
  
• Funding per passenger the Bush Administration has spent to secure mass transit systems since September 11, 2001: $0.01
  
• Cost of security upgrades needed to protect rail and transit systems as estimated by U.S. transit authorities: $6 billion
  
• Amount of funding designated specifically for rail and transit security in President Bush's budget: $0
  
• Total amount of funding added to the Fiscal Year 2006 Homeland Security Appropriations bill for rail security in the wake of the July 7 London Bombings: $0
  
• Number of provisions in federal law requiring chemical facilities to establish safeguards against a terrorist attack: 0
  
• Number of chemical facilities at which a terrorist strike could threaten the lives of over 1 million people: 123
  
• Percent of cargo arriving at U.S. ports inspected for WMD: <1
  
• Percent of "high-risk" cargo inspected: 17.5
  
• Estimated economic impact of a terrorist attack to a U.S. port: $1 trillion
  
• Percent of Transportation Security Administration Fiscal Year 2005 budget allocated for port security grants: 2.8
  
• Deadline for meeting port security standards set by the Maritime Transportation Security Act: 2004
  
• Year in which MTSA port security standards will be met if port security funding levels remain constant: 2050
  
• Ratio of federal air security screeners to federal surface transportation (rail and public transit) security screeners: 450:1
  
• Homeland security grant dollars per capita awarded to the U.S. Virgin Islands in Fiscal Year 2004: $104.35
  
• Homeland security grant dollars per capita awarded to California in Fiscal Year 2004: $4.97

Veterans

• Total Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom veterans discharged from service, through February 2005: 360,674
  
• Total Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom veterans seeking health care from VA hospitals, through June 2005: 103,000
  
• Total funding requested specifically to meet the needs of Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom veterans in the President's
  2006 budget: $0
  
• Total Compensation and Pension Claims Backlog: 506,701
  
• Percent change in pending claims from the end of Fiscal Year 2003 to March 2005: +33
  
• Gap between veterans' needs and President Bush's 2006 budget proposal: $3.5 billion
  
• Percent increase needed each year just to maintain existing programs in the face of medical inflation and other rising costs: 13-14
  
• Percent increase in veterans health care funding requested in President Bush's 2006 Budget Proposal: 0.4
  
• Fiscal Year 2005 budget shortfall announced by the VA: $1 billion
  
• Number of weeks prior to the VA's budget shortfall announcement that VA Secretary Nicholson told Congress, "I can assure you that VA does not need emergency supplemental funds in FY 2005": 11
  
• Total funding shortfall for Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006 now identified by the Bush Administration: $3 billion

Democracy and Development

• Number of Botswanan AIDS patients the Bush Administration claims are receiving treatment because of U.S. assistance: 32,839
  
• Number of Botswanan AIDS patients the Botswanan government says are receiving treatment because of U.S. assistance: 0
  
• Total amount appropriated to the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) so far: $2.48 billion
  
• Total value of compacts signed with MCA recipient nations: $435 million
  
• Total aid distributed by the MCA so far: $0
  
• Average amount per year to be distributed through the three compact agreements signed so far: $31.1 million
  
• Annual amount President Bush has requested for the MCA: $5 billion
  
• Number of the world's ten poorest nations with whom the United States has signed an MCA compact: 0
  
• Number of the world's 50 poorest nations with whom the United States has signed an MCA compact: 1
  
• Rank of U.S. among 21 developed nations in foreign assistance spending measured as a percentage of Gross National Product: 20
  
• Number of children dying each day from preventable diseases: 27,000
  
• Portion of the world's population living on less than $2 per day: 1/2
  
• Cut in funding for foreign development assistance proposed in President Bush's Budget: $345 million

Has the Bush Administration's efforts in Iraq made us safer from terrorism?

• Minimum number of terrorist attacks likely carried out by al Qaeda and related groups since the U.S. invaded Iraq: 11
  
• Minimum casualties caused by these attacks: 450
  
• Number of international terrorist attacks reported by the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004: 651
  
• Number of attacks reported by the State Department in 2003 (then reported to be the highest number in 21 years): 175
  
• Number of Americans killed by international terrorism last year (not including U.S. troops fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan): 68
  
• Iraq's rank among worldwide terrorist breeding grounds, according to the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department: 1