I guess Perry would prefer the Bush call Kim Jong-il the Dear Leader instead of the tyrant that he is?

Some of you may remember that Perry also wrote an editorial before the July NK missile tests in the Washington Post advocating a bombing campaign against the NK Taepodong missile before it could be tested. Perry like many former Clintonites are trying to rewrite history. Their policies were a failure then and their advice is a failure now.

Just think about if the US followed Perry's advice before July's missile test. A bombing campaign against NK would validate the very reason Kim Jong-il proclaims for needing both a ICBM and nuclear programs; to protect the country from US aggression not to mention possibly causing a second Korean War which the US would have clearly been the aggressor. Additionally the US would have never gathered the valuable intelligence of the failed test. The US didn't totally know the NK ICBM capabilities, now the US does. It is the same thing with the nuclear test. The US now knows that the NK nuclear program is not as advanced as the North Koreans would want you to believe. Plus the NK actions have driven a wedge between China and North Korea which a bombing campaign would have never done. If anything it would bring the two allies closer together against US aggression. Now this is not the case after the nuclear test because China is actually seriously considering backing a UN resolution that would allow a US naval blockade of North Korea. Do you think a bombing campaign would have brought this close cooperation with China about?

So what does Perry advocate in the wake of the nuclear test, when his bombing campaign policy would have been an obvious failure? Well I really don't know because the article is all blame Bush with no policy alternatives. Maybe he learned from his last article that blaming Bush is safer politics than actually providing alternative policy ideas.

Army - 13,358
Marines - 6,650
Navy - 446
Air Force - 233

Officers - 1,199
Senior Enlisted - 6,584
Junior Enlisted - 12,904

Male - 20,687
Female - 418

"He must be trying to burnish his credentials for the nomination process," said Kerry, who labeled McCain's comments "flat politics and incorrect."

"The truth is the Clinton administration knew full well they didn't have a perfect agreement. But at least they were talking. At least we had inspectors going in and we knew where the (nuclear fuel) rods were. This way, we don't know where the rods are, the rods are gone. There are no inspectors. Ask any American which way is better," Kerry said.

I guess it is okay for the Democrats to play politics but McCain can't because the news networks have been filled with Democrats engaging in Bush bashing all week.

This is what the Clinton camp had to say:

Sen. Clinton's spokesman dismissed McCain's criticism and argued that it was time for a new policy from the president.

"Now is not the time to play politics of the most dangerous kind — with our policy on North Korea," Philippe Reines, spokesman for Sen. Clinton, said in a statement. "History is clear that nothing the Bush administration has done has stopped the North Koreans from openly testing a nuclear weapon and presenting a new danger to the region of the world."

What is interesting about this is that Clinton's staff was drawing up war plans to bomb North Korea's reactor when Jimmy Carter showed up in Pyongyang and brokered the deal that led to the 1994 Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework failed because their was not enough inspection standards in place to stop the North Koreans from continuing their nuclear program covertly. So basically all the free aid they received allowed them to divert resources to aid their nuclear program. Clinton acted in good will hoping that the North Koreans would reciprocate, but they didn't which isn't necessarily Clinton's fault because he had to try to engage the North Koreans before launching a war. I for one can understand trying diplomacy before launching a war.

However, the US should know better now that the North Koreans cannot be trusted to uphold a bargain without strict inspection standards that the North Koreans will not allow. The Democrats demands to hold bi-lateral talks means that they want Bush to cut another deal similar to the 1994 Agreed Framework that has already failed once. Why should Bush implement this failed policy again?

The method used is something called "cluster sampling" where "randomly selected households" are asked a sort of 'mortal exit poll' on how many people in their family have died since the 2003 invasion. Visions of the 2004 exit polling reports that predicted with absolute certainty a landslide victory for the eventual losing candidate comes to mind as one reads the "sampling" used to extrapolate the numbers.

The survey was conducted between May 20 and July 10 by eight Iraqi physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They visited 1,849 randomly selected households that had an average of seven members each. One person in each household was asked about deaths in the 14 months before the invasion and in the period after.

The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.

From a sample of "1,849 randomly selected households," we are to believe a number like 655,000? Stunning boldness rivaling that of the Zarqawi himself.

And 90% of those asked had death certificates? Where were they randomly polling, at the morgue itself? Who issues Iraqi death certificates? And now we are getting somewhere... Who knows more about Iraqi deaths (from which to potentially 'randomly sample' families)? Perhaps "eight Iraqi physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad"? A Baghdad university would select doctors from which city? Perhaps the most dangerous one in Iraq? To where might they venture out to 'randomly sample'? In a dangerous country, there is comfort in familiarity...even if it is Baghdad.

Precisely how the polling Iraqi physicians were "overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health," as the story states, is beyond me. Did they perhaps oversee how randomly the households were chosen and from where? Seems Mustansiriya University did the organizing.

But Columbia University's Ronald Waldman assures us that the 'scientific' cluster sampling method is "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have." Well that's wonderful analysis, Dr. Waldman. At 500 deaths per day, as this 'scientific report' claims, the Marine in me thinks that this instance of "cluster sampling" looks a whole lot more like a "cluster-somethingelse." It might be the best available, but at one point in time a large stick was the best hunting method. It didn't make it 'good.'

Of course, there are more upstanding members of the global intellectual community prepared to assure us that indeed 500 Iraqi's have died of wounds suffered each day for the past three-plus years.

This viewed [sic] was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights Watch in New York, who said, "We have no reason to question the findings or the accuracy" of the survey.

Well of course Human Rights Watch doesn't question the findings. Just look at the numbers! It's a political goldmine for them. But Whitson can't stop there. What she says next will absolutely floor any objective observer.

"I expect that people will be surprised by these figures," she said.

Ya think? Please, Ms. Whitson, do qualify that remark if you would be so kind.

"I think it is very important that, rather than questioning them, people realize there is very, very little reliable data coming out of Iraq."

Very little reliable data coming from Iraq...perhaps including this Mortal Exit Poll??? Since there's apparently so little reliable data coming out of Iraq, why start questioning numbers now?

Gilbert Burnham, a Johns Hopkins physician and epidemiologist, is "very confident with the results." He cites the consistency of the poll's pre-invasion death rates found that were similar to pre-invasion death rates cited by others, including the CIA's World Factbook, that "attests to the accuracy of his team's results."

But if those 'randomly' polled are concentrated in the Baghdad vicinity and other post-invasion high-conflict population centers, such as Fallujah or Ramadi, those findings cannot be extrapolated across the whole of the Iraqi population. Of course the pre-invasion numbers would be similar before the onset of hostilities. For that matter, one wonders if the eight doctors ventured north to ask the Kurds for pre- and post-Saddam violent death rates.

And, appropriately, this look at the MIT-sponsored study should conclude with its empirical data.

Of the 629 deaths reported, 87 percent occurred after the invasion. A little more than 75 percent of the dead were men, with a greater male preponderance after the invasion. For violent post-invasion deaths, the male-to-female ratio was 10-to-1, with most victims between 15 and 44 years old.

And there you have it. From 629 deaths exit polled we can 'scientifically' extrapolate a reliable 655,000 who have died that otherwise would have lived but for the US invasion in 2003.

629.