You know that those "virgins" are called Houris...where we get our word whore from, I believe. A real hedonistic relgion if you ask me.
"Sadr's militia has nothing to do with the 18K worldwide AQ figure. He had at best 6000, most of those peeled off when it became clear that US troops could kill them at will - he is (was) down to 1000 or so, less and less every day. The Sadr problem will be wrapped up soon - the only question is how the media (and some freepers actually) will spin this into a defeat for the US."
It's even better than that. This assumes that if you're not killed, you're in perfect fighting condition. How many have been wounded severely enough to prevent them from being able to fight? How many others have freaked out and deserted (they're not robots any more than we are)? Probably a good rule of thumb is "times two wounded" as Captain Miller says in Saving Private Ryan. 100 dead, 200 wounded, of these wounded, probably half won't fight again. 200 out of action. Plus maybe a handful of deserters.
As for Al Qaeda, this is not just a question of math. We don't have to kill/capture all 18,000 to render them ineffective. We probably don't even have to kill a third. We've been targeting the leadership from the get-go. This is how Rudy G handled the Italian mob in the 80's -- cut the heads off the families and the young Turks that replace them will be too stupid and/or impulsive to run the families effectively. (Of course, now the Russian mob has picked up the slack, but that's another story.)
Anyway, 3,000 AQ's have been killed or captured, a pretty high percentage of these in leadership positions. That more than likely has more to do with no US attacks since 9/11 than any other single factor. 18,000 men is a division, a formidable fighting force. But if all 18,000 are privates? Fuhget aboud it...