Exiting Iraq.(on the right)

NEW YORK, MAY 6

IT is time to ponder the strategic impact of the casualty figures. The U.S. has lost approximately 1,500 dead in military action and 10,000 wounded, and we continue to lose about 50 soldiers every month. The Iraqis (using loose counts) die and are wounded at about ten times the U.S. rate. Moreover, Iraqi deaths have increased substantially since the national election in January.

We know philosophically that all deaths should be counted equally, since we are all God's children. But it isn't surprising that U.S. concern should focus on deaths of our own troops, with concern for Iraqi casualties mostly as a building block of strategic reckoning. It may sound inhuman, but it is very human to care about our own on the battlefield. And doing so sharpens the strategic picture for us. We are entitled to say to ourselves: If the bloodletting is to go on, it can do so without our involvement in it.

The indecisive course of affairs keeps us from saying with any confidence that Iraqi forces are now capable of maintaining a peace. Some reason that the impulse to kill will wither the day the last American embarks for home. But it is by no means safe to conclude that if U.S. troops withdrew tomorrow, the killings would end. Every day bombs go off, and suicide killers set out, even when there is no prospect of killing a U.S. soldier.

We have, by our agitation for free elections and human rights, enlivened Iraqis who had never experienced freedom, and we can safely assume that their enthusiasm for a freer society affects the public mood. But it is manifest that also affected are those whose determination is to advance their cruel agenda. The hatred of the Shiites for the Sunnis is not seriously affected by the presence of U.S. troops. The resentment expressed by Kurdish spokesmen for parliamentary ...