That 9/11 Connection At Last

According to Agencies, "officials said today that six more US soldiers had been killed in Iraq, pushing the American military death toll to at least 2,978 - five more than the number killed in the September 11 2001 attacks in the United States". A few lines down, confirmatory evidence is supplied: "The September 11 2001 attacks claimed 2,973 victims".

The inclusion of this mathematical factoid is puzzling for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the American military death toll in the 9/11 attacks was approximately zero, unless, as here, there were some "military civilians" among the victims. For another, the Iraq adventure has no connection with the 9/11 attacks. Iraq was invaded to save the world from weapons of mass destruction, then to topple Saddam Hussein, then to teach the natives about democracy and stuff, then to keep the war on terror going by the expensive but efficient expedient of ensuring a constant and growing supply of terrorists for the Coalition of the Enlightened to fight against.

Nevertheless, our leading liberal newspaper considers the mathematical factoid important enough to merit a subheading, giving it less significance only than fifty-five car bomb injuries and the readiness of Our Brave Boys. It outweighs, for example, "concern about how closely aligned some police units are with militias and death squads", which appears in a subordinate clause in a sentence in the eleventh paragraph about coalition forces helping the natives to understand their responsibilities. It certainly outweighs the concerns of the sovereign, independent Iraqi government about a couple of Iranians who are in the country at the president's invitation and who have been detained by the glorious liberators.