The 1,000 milestone

I wrote this on May 11th:

"Sometime before the November election, the 1000th soldier will die in Iraq. I expect a lot of soul searching in the media. I also guess that both presidential campaigns already have their written statements prepared for that day."

According to this website, we've now hit that date. There's been some mention in the media, but less than I expected.

I have little doubt that we'll hit the 1,500 fatality milestone, half the number lost on 9/11, sometime in 2005. I don't know if the number of US fatalities in Iraq will ever exceed the number who died on 9/11, but I am more pessimistic about that now than I used to be. At the current average of 2.2 American deaths, that will happen in March 2007. If our death rate gets 50% worse, then it'll happen in May 2006. Those dates are not in the immediate future, but it's quite imaginable that Iraq will not get much better in 2 years than it has in the last year and four months.