US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,113

By The Associated Press – 20 hours ago

As of Sunday, June 29, 2008, at least 4,113 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,350 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

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The latest deaths reported by the military:

+ No deaths reported.

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The latest identifications reported by the military:

+ No identifications reported.

How Much Is A Billion?

Understanding The Budget

Related Resources • Spending Our Way To Financial Ruin • US Gross National Debt As Percent of Gross Domestic Product Elsewhere on the Web • Power of 10 • Geologic Time Politicians -- at the state and federal level -- talk in numbers that most folks can't visualize. So how much is a billion? First, we have to clarify that we're using the US system of numbers (short scale), not the British system (long scale). 1 Thousand 1,000 103 1 Million 1,000,000 106 1 Billion 1,000,000,000 109 1 Trillion 1,000,000,000,000 1012 1 Quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000 1015 1 Quintillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 1018 The chart, however accurate, doesn't put the number -- one thousand million -- into perspective. Here are some attempts, collected from around the Net: If we wanted to pay down a billion dollars of the US debt, paying one dollar a second, it would take 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds. To pay off a trillion dollars of debt, at a dollar a second, would take about 32,000 years. A tightly-packed stack of new $1,000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high. In comparison, jet planes fly at 30,000 - 40,000 feet (5.7 - 7.7 miles high). About a billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was in full swing. (One billion minutes is about 1,900 years.) About a billion hours ago, we were living in the Stone Age. (One billion hours is about 114,000 years.) About a billion months ago, dinosaurs walked the earth. (One billion months is about 82 million years.) A billion inches is 15,783 miles, more than halfway around the earth (circumference). The earth is about 8,000 miles wide (diameter), and the sun is about 800,000 miles wide, not quite a million.