(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - “At least 4,487 U.S. soldiers died during the war, in addition to 318 from other foreign countries. Additionally, 32,226 more U.S. troops were seriously wounded in action,” Ian Livingston and Michael O'Hanlon wrote on the Foreign Policy website.
They said the war took its major toll on Iraqis, as more than 115,000 Iraqi civilians died in violence as a result of war.
However, they cautioned, “This number is approximate and the correct figure could well be tens of thousands higher.”
“At the peak of the civil war -- characterized by sectarian violence and spurred on by outside influences like al Qaeda -- during much of 2006 and the first half of 2007, monthly death tolls of 3,000 or greater were seen.”
The researchers said over 10,000 Iraqi security force personnel perished from June 2003 through the end of 2011, and as many as 200 to 300 Iraqi Army and police deaths per month occurred from 2005 to 2007.
Monthly civilian tolls now stand in the range of “100 to 300 fatalities,” the authors said.
They added that daily attacks and minor bombings are still “commonplace,” as are larger coordinated attacks like the one on December 22, which left at least 72 people dead and more than 217 others injured.
As for Iraq's oil revenue and energy infrastructure, the researchers said the process of increasing oil production has been “slow and tedious,” with most of the increase in revenues due to the rise in world oil prices rather than greater output.
The researchers said the prewar rate of production -- around 2.5 million barrels per day -- has only witnessed a “slight increase” since the war's initial phase in 2003. They further described Iraq's hopes to increase production to 13.5 million barrels per day by 2018 as seeming “more like a dream than an actual plan.”
Foreign investment is “less than hoped for”, owing in part to numerous administrative and political hurdles as well as the security situation, Livingstone and O'Hanlon said.
Insurgents still attack deteriorating and war-ravaged infrastructure relatively frequently. Recently, a mid-December bombing of the expansive Rumaila oil field cut its daily production in half, or by 700,000 barrels per day.
The researchers said when it comes to disappointed expectations the Iraqi oil sector is not alone. In fact, Iraq's electricity problem may be one of its greatest as “Iraqi electrical grid often fails to reach 50 percent of demand.”
As for technology and means of communication, roughly half the country's citizens still do not have a phone of any kind; and computers are still only in a small fraction of Iraqi homes.
The researchers further looked into the flow of people from Iraq, saying with up to 1 million Iraqis already displaced prior to the war, “millions more” fled their homes in the aftermath of the US-led invasion.
“Between 2.5 million and 3 million Iraqis ended up displaced at the peak, many in disheveled camps and squatter communities.”
They said an additional 2 million refugees ended up outside the country as a result of the occupation, primarily in neighboring Syria and Jordan.
Many of the Iraqi refugees who have returned home have reported that they “regret” coming back as the possibility of future violence and additional displacement remains palpable.
The researchers further cited recent surveys produced by the International Republican Institute showing that, “a majority of Iraqis now think the country is headed in the wrong direction.”
In Baghdad in particular, a survey released in early December 2011 indicated that 62 percent thought the country was headed in the wrong direction, compared with the 28 percent who believed it was headed in a positive direction.
“Iraq has come a long way, but its progress is fragile and the moment is fraught,” Livingston and O'Hanlon concluded.
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