Last June, Howard Dean was on Meet the Press when Tim Russert asked exactly how many troops the U.S. has on active duty. Dean didn’t know the exact number and Russert scoffed. In fact, the two had an animated debate over its significance.
Russert: [H]ow many men and women do we now have on active duty?
Dean: I can’t tell you the answer to that either. It’s…
Russert: But as commander in chief, you should now that.
The whole thing seemed rather silly, but conservatives used the exchange of proof of Dean’s incompetence on military affairs. This isn’t trivia, they argued; serious people in positions of power should know such things.
With this in mind, what are we to make of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz?
Asked how many American troops have died in Iraq, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian estimated Thursday the total was about 500 — more than 200 soldiers short.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was asked about the toll at a hearing of a House Appropriations subcommittee. “It’s approximately 500, of which — I can get the exact numbers — approximately 350 are combat deaths,” he responded.
That’s not particularly close. As of yesterday afternoon, U.S. deaths in Iraq totaled 722 of which 521 were combat fatalities.
As one of the nation’s leading proponents of the war in Iraq, a man who helped orchestrate the invasion from the beginning, and the #2 man at the Pentagon, shouldn’t he know how many troops have died in the war?