Iraq War: A Look at Some Simple Stats
The month of October ended with a tie (with July , 2008) for the fewest number of US fatalities in the Iraq War. Thirteen US deaths in Iraq in October, only eight of them from hostile fire. This very low number, considering there are still over 140,000 troops in Iraq, should be cause for celebration and in-depth media analysis. Unfortunately, it is met with mostly a passing, minor, article here and there and that’s it.
It is my opinion that this “war” is no longer a war. It is in a period of post-war stabilization. The long-term total operation in Iraq, still ongoing, is a part of the War on Terror. I certainly understand that. But, the Iraq War, that large element of the broader War on Terror, and the first stage in the long-term Iraq operation, is over, and we are well into stabilization.
In light of this very low US fatality number for October, 2008, I thought I would do some additional analysis through a great source, iCasualties.org.
Click on the link at the bottom of this post for some charts I created. My conclusions:
Obviously the first one is that the US casualties have dropped substantially in the last year as well as that of the Iraqi Secutiry Forces and Iraqi Civilians. That’s pretty well known. But, what I find interesting is this: The perception until a few months ago when The Surge began to work (and it has worked) was that the war was escalating, getting worse, spiraling down hill. I always maintained that this perception created by the media was inaccurate. I always believed that, while there were major setbacks, the situation was never completely out of control and never in a complete downward spiral.
First, the US chart indicates that, after the first full year of the war, US fatalities held at a similar annual rate between years 2 and 5. This dispells the notion that the level of US casualties were escalating during this time, which was the perception created, I believe, by the media.
Second, Iraqi Security Forces saw a gradual decline in annual fatalities since iCasualties.org began measuring this statistic in January, 2005. Again, this goes against the common perception that Iraqi forces were seeing escalating fatalities from 2005 through 2007 as they were actually declining a little each year.
Last, Iraqi civilian deaths spiked in 2006 and 2007 and have dropped way down in 2008 (projected), an indication that the quality and safety of every day life in Iraq has dramatically improved in the last year. But, it is very unclear whether all of these civilian deaths were directly war-related or not. For example, on November 1st, according to iCasualties.org, “police found the body of a man bearing stab wounds in central Hilla.” Is that war-related, or just a murder? Who knows.
Check out the link below for the cool charts.
