Iraq vs Vietnam by the numbers

Size of Iraq is 437,072 square kilometers

Size of Vietnam is 325,360 square kilometers

If Iraq is the size of a nice round pie, then Vietnam is that same pie missing a big old hefty slice. Vietnam is smaller than Iraq by 111,712 square kilometers. Or doing some simple calculation by changing square kilometers to square miles, Iraq is larger than Vietnam by 43, 143 square miles. 43, 143 square miles is slightly less than the size of the State of New York. So if you take Vietnam and add on the State of New York, you get the approximate size of Iraq.

The peak number of American troops in Vietnam was 536,100 in the year 1968.

The number of American troops in Iraq is 140,000.

To recap: Vietnam is smaller than Iraq and yet with 536, 100, the US could not "win" the Vietnam War. Iraq is a country that is larger than Vietnam and yet we are engaged in an occupation with less than a third of the troops that were in Vietnam. As we know the occupation is not proceeding well.

Finally, this article appeared on Thursday November 16, 2006. Here is the gist of it. Bush wants to try a big push for a win in Iraq by sending in 20,000 more troops.

Compare this number 20,000 plus the 140,000 that are already in Iraq to the number of troops in Vietnam in 1968 that is 536,100. Now given these numbers, do you think this "strategy" is going to work?