IRAQ WAR

CS Science Monitor: Iraq war's human toll could be felt for decades

Beyond fatalities, an average of eight American soldiers a day are wounded

Politicians and the press tend to tally the human costs of going to war by counting those killed. So far, that's 311 Americans in Iraq and 88 more as part of "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan. If one dates this newly defined "war on terror" back to the 1983 car bomb attack on the US Marine barracks in Lebanon, another 300 or so American lives have been lost.
But the number of those wounded in action (or injured in combat-zone accidents) is far higher. And while combat deaths have been relatively low since the Vietnam War, the ratio of these nonfatal casualties to war fatalities is increasing - from 3 to 1 in World War II to more than 5 to 1 in Iraq (1,691 to date).

With no end in sight to a substantial US presence in Iraq, the number of nonfatal casualties (now averaging more than eight per day) is likely to keep increasing, experts say. And beyond the human dimension, the costs of such casualties, which tend to be overlooked as part of the cost of national security and foreign policy, will continue for decades as well. Among those costs: rehabilitation, retraining, postcombat counseling, long-term medical treatment, and assisted-living care.