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Originally Posted by Nodrog
The death toll doesnt really matter. If the invasion was unjustified then 1 dead person is too many, and if it was justified then pretty much any number is acceptable.
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That's not true unless you consider the type of justification given. If the justification we're accepting is that Iraq was a threat to the world then maybe it's immaterial how many Iraqi's die (although even then I'm not sure about that) but if the justification was to make life better for Iraqi's then of course it matters how many die.
Hiroshima is justified (or so they say) because the 100,000+ who died are balanced against the (potential) millions of lives which might have been lost if the war hadn't ended.
If we look at the Falklands War then perhaps the thousand lives that were lost were justified, given the circumstances. However, if the casualties had risen to (say) a million dead, I think it'd be pretty clear that the war wasn't "worth it" in any sense.
On the topic at hand though, I'm not sure why it matters. As with all wars and massacres the statistics will be manipulated by all sides. But many thousands have died and it's not clear what's been achieved in the long run. I'm sure most still cling to the beliefs they held before the invasion though, and that probably won't change.