[andyfox]

JIM LEHRER: The war has now been going on 2-1/2 years. This week in fact the one-thousandth day went by, and more than 2,100 Americans have died.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, sir.

JIM LEHRER: When you made the decision to go to war, did you expect this kind of casualty rate?

PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I knew there would be casualties. I never tried to guess.

JIM LEHRER: Did you ask General Franks or Secretary Rumsfeld, what's the risk here, what's the casualty possibility?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I think everybody understood the risks, Jim. I'll never forget making the decision in the Situation Room, and it affected me. I mean, it was-- I got up out of the chair and walked around the South Lawn there and I thought, you know, I knew the decision I had just made, a decision, by the way, that I had been wrestling with for months, was the right decision in my judgment, or obviously I wouldn't have made it, but also one that would have consequences for Americans and families and members of the soldiers who died.

We run a danger of trying to say the casualties are less than other wars or more than expected. It's just everybody matters, every person matters, and what really matters is having the strategy and the will to make sure any death is not-- is honored by achieving an objective.

JIM LEHRER: But the risk factors that you took into consideration in making the decision did not involve specific numbers that, oh my goodness, this could cost us this many lives? Or how about Iraqi lives? You said this week that 30,000 Iraqis have died.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Was that on the table when you made the decision?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I think, well, first of all, I said 30,000, that's because it's kind of the general talk. And I don't know if we know specifically how many died. Nor do I think you don't sit around in a planning session and say, gosh, I wonder how many-- how many people are going to die because of suicide bombers or because of politics or-- I know this, that when we went in we had a plan to target the guilty and spare the innocent and with our precision weaponry and a military that is a humane group of people that we did a good job of that.

But war is brutal, war is death, war is-- and I knew that going in. I just don't remember people, you know, trying to guess.

JIM LEHRER: And you didn't-- what I'm really getting at is these numbers, we know the real numbers on Americans.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: And the speculative number, the approximate number on Iraqis is 30,000. Is that about what you expected? You didn't--

PRESIDENT BUSH: You know, I just--

JIM LEHRER: You didn't think in those terms?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I just--I can't--I really didn't. I mean, I would hope for zero but realistically understand that in war people will die. And I also keep in mind the fact that there's hundreds of thousands who were killed by the tyrant. And what's really important is which I tried to do the other day, is to make sure that this war in Iraq stays in context, that we were dealing with a threat.

[end of interview excerpt]

So the president said that "you don't sit around in a planning session and say, gosh, I wonder how many-- how many people are going to die because of suicide bombers or because of politics" He doesn't "remember people, you know, trying to guess." When asked if he thought in terms of casualties, he said, "I just--I can't--I really didn't. I mean, I would hope for zero but realistically understand that in war people will die."

This is nothing short of shocking. The president claims that in planning sessions for an invasion, a war, and an occupation, you don't sit around and say, gosh, I wonder how many people are going to die.

Well, gosh, that's just criminally incompetent behavior.