U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply

Who will be hthe last man to die, or have a life-long brain injury, for Bush and Cheney.

U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply - washingtonpost.com:

These days, wounded are a much better measure of the intensity of the operations than killed,' said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The surge in wounded comes as U.S. commanders issue increasingly dire warnings about the threat of civil war in Iraq, all but ruling out cuts in the current contingent of more than 140,000 U.S. troops before the spring of 2007. Last month Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, said 'sectarian tensions, if left unchecked, could be fatal to Iraq,' making it imperative that the U.S. military now focus its 'main effort' squarely on Baghdad.

Thousands of additional U.S. troops have been ordered to Baghdad since July to reinforce Iraqi soldiers and police who failed to halt -- or were in some cases complicit in -- a wave of hundreds of killings of Iraqi civilians by rival Sunni and Shiite groups.