What was Kerry pre-war prior expectation on casualty number before supporting Bush?

October 1, 2004 | McConnell

[mcconnell]

Senator John Kerry defended his support for war on Iraq at a forum at Western New England College. Karen Brown reports on the opposition that has arisen to Kerry because of his vote. (11/4/02) Listen to him via these links.

http://www.wfcr.org/OLD_WWW/kerryoniraq.wma

http://www.wfcr.org/OLD_WWW/kerryoniraq.ram

We need your help to find out about Kerry's prior knowledge on potential casualty number before the war. Since Kerry defended his support for the war on Iraq what was the estimated casualty count that Kerry expected in this war on Iraq? What prior knowledge did he have?

What was the “acceptable” number for casualty count for this war that Kerry was willing to accept before he initially offered his support before his flip-flop? We all know that we were expecting a much, much higher casualty number while troops were closing in on Bagdad. We expected the worst. Chemical weapons fired on us and troops had their chemical gears readied for that moment. Everybody was expecting plenty of troop deaths on the ground. If this was the “wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” because of the number of troop deaths going over the "magical" 1,000 troop deaths (God bless them and their families!) after 18 months, then I question Kerry’s on what was his feelings on the acceptable casualty number he had in mind.

Heck, we were prepared for a much higher number than 1000 troop deaths during the initial and later phase of the offensive attacks in the beginning of March of 2003 and onward during the troops’ march to Bagdad. Many dreaded the urban warfare scenario where troop body count would be expected to be higher because of the nature of, what else, urban warfare in such cities as Bagdad.

So, we need info on whether Kerry had information about pre-war estimates on casualty count prior to the Iraq invasion before giving his approval to authorize Bush to use force and his reason why he defended his support of the war on Iraq. Kerry must have had prior knowledge and expectation on what the casualty number may turn out to be like during the initial phase of the fire fight with ground troops paving the way. After all, he's an "expert" on warfare. He should know the expected casualty numbers.

If we can establish that Kerry had prior knowledge about the potential casualty number then his “wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” speil would be crushed and become meaningless when all of us expected a much, much high casualty count at the beginning of the war. Certainly much higher than the 1052+ combat deaths right now but 18 months later.

[Mike Darancette]

I'm wondering what CENTCOM was expecting and would have considered acceptable.

[Steven W.]

those numbers are classified. Libs typically estimated deaths at 10K or so during major combat operations and that troops needed would be 300-400K (over 3 times what was necessary). Shinseki was really that far off and Lurch continues to believe that more (US) troops is the only answer. He wasn't fired as the libs maintain but he should have been.

[meenie]

He wasn't fired but he was relieved of his command so he could retire a year early. If Shineski was so wrong, why is there so much emphasis for the training of 180,000 Iraqi as soon as possible? 120,000+180.000 Iraqis= 300,000? I don't buy Kerry's reasoning but it is obvious that we are having manpower problems in our land forces. Shineski is being proved right in his testimony.

[Question_Assumptions]

Don't forget that in his debate with John O'Neill on the Dick Cavett show in the early 1970s, John Kerry estimated that the North Vietnamese would kill maybe 5,000 political enemies when they took over the South. He was only off by about 2000%.