Fact-checking the debate

Time magazine did an excellent job of tracking down the lies and misleading statements made by both Bush and Kerry in last Thursday's debate. They do it with a refreshingly anti-war viewpoint. For example, here's one of their checks on Kerry:

The Claim: The U.S. is suffering 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq.

Reality Check:
The U.S. may be recording upward of 90 percent of coalition casualties, but the overwhelming majority of the people killed in Iraq over the past 18 months have been Iraqis.

And one on Bush:

The Claim:
President Bush says he tried diplomacy in Iraq, and went to war only when it failed.

Reality Check:
Numerous accounts from within the U.S. and allied governments suggest the Bush Administration had decided to invade Iraq even before it went to the UN in the fall of 2002, and had gone back to the international body only under pressure from moderates in its own ranks and from Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair. The termination of the UN inspection process had nothing to do with its progress; it was based primarily on the window of opportunity for an invasion presented by the seasonal calendar.