Fast Fact

Iran has started installing “6000 new centrifuges” at the Natanz enrichment plant, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announced after visiting the nuclear enrichment facility on Tuesday.... In his address at the meeting, the president said the testing of the new advanced centrifuges, which can enrich uranium five times faster than the current machines, will be finished in the next three months.

The percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the Army because of a criminal record or other past misconduct has more than doubled since 2004 to one for every eight new soldiers. The increase reflects the difficulties the Army faces in attracting young men and women into the military at a time of war

27 percent of noncommissioned officers - a critically important group - on their third or fourth tour exhibited symptoms commonly referred to as post-traumatic stress disorders. That figure is far higher than the roughly 12 percent who exhibit those symptoms after one tour and the 18.5 percent who develop the disorders after a second deployment

With one month of Iraq war funding we could have repaired our most critical levees and dams.

With one month of Iraq war funding we could have bought more than a year’s health insurance for the 4 million children Bush vetoed under SCHIP.

With one day of Iraq War funding we could have hired 6,921 new public school teachers for a year.

With one day of Iraq War funding we could have sent 6,883 high school graduates to four fully funded years at
public universities.

The U.S. spends $10 billion every month on the Iraq war, a total of $500 billion so far.

In the countries of the former Soviet Union there is currently enough unsecured radioactive material to build 40,000 nuclear weapons.

The number of Army recruits needing waivers for bad behavior – such as using drugs, stealing, carrying weapons on school grounds, and fighting – rose from 15 percent in 2006 to 18 percent in 2007.