Tonight we're undoubtedly going to hear our smirking Veep say something like this out of the side of his mouth:
"We haven't been going it alone in Iraq; we are standing side-by-side with a coalition of 29 other nations..."
It was part of Bush's disjointed message last Thursday, it will surely be part of Cheney's tonight.
We've heard next month's President-elect say that US troops have suffered 90% of the casualties while we've borne 90% of the costs. Here are the numbers for the rest of the "coalition:"
Stats are below
The full up-to-date spreadsheet is
here.
Of the 29 countries in the mighty coalition:
-- 8 have fewer than 100 troops in Iraq.
-- 23 have fewer than 1,000.
-- 25 have fewer than 2,000.
-- 27 have fewer than 3,000.
-- 28 have fewer than 3,100.
And Great Britain has just over 8,300.
Seven countries -- Thailand, Spain, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Philippines, New Zealand -- have withdrawn all their troops.
US forces in and around Iraq (as of April): about 200,000.
Here is the entire list:
Norway - 10
Moldova - 12
Macedonia - 28
Kazakhstan - 29
Singapore - 33
Tonga - 45
Estonia - 55
Albania - 70
Slovakia - 105
Lithuania - 105
Czech Republic - 110
Latvia - 122
Portugal - 128
Azerbaijan - 151
Georgia - 159
Mongolia - 180
Australia - 250 (600 more "in theater")
Hungary - 300
El Salvador - 380
Bulgaria - 485
Denmark - 496
Japan - 550 (200 more "in theater")
Romania - 700
Netherlands - 1,345
Ukraine - 1,576
Poland - 2,500
South Korea - 2,800
Italy - 3,085 (84 more "in theater")
United Kingdom - 8,361 (3,500 more "in theater")