Iraq and Afghanistan

Casualties

The steady drip of casualties on the structure of our Iraq adventure continues. One gets the impression that things are calming down, even as we pursue another offensive in Karbala. Let us then look at a chart of fatalities in the coalition forces:

Military Fatalities: By Month:

Period	US	UK	Other	Total	Avg	Days
3-2003	65	27	0	92	7.67	12
4-2003	73	6	0	79	2.63	30
5-2003	37	4	0	41	1.32	31
6-2003	30	6	0	36	1.2	30
7-2003	47	1	0	48	1.55	31
8-2003	35	6	2	43	1.39	31
9-2003	31	1	1	33	1.1	30
10-2003	42	1	2	45	1.45	31
11-2003	82	1	27	110	3.67	30
12-2003	40	0	8	48	1.55	31
1-2004	47	5	0	52	1.68	31
2-2004	20	1	2	23	0.79	29
3-2004	52	0	0	52	1.68	31
4-2004	140	0	5	145	4.83	30
5-2004	32	0	3	35	2.92	12
Total	773	59	50	882	2.1	420

These are fatalities. The wounded amount to about 4500. The Iraqi combatant loss may well be over 6000 by now. Civilian casualties are estimated at about 10,000. But these estimates are subject to great error. Perhaps it is enough to note that the daily reports generally report Iraqi combatant and civilian fatalities in numbers much larger than those for coalition forces. I have not seen an estimate for the number of non-Iraqi civilians that have been killed, but it has been growing.

Turning back to the table, if the war is being won and the society is stabilizing, then the daily average should decline. We see highs at the beginning, last November, and this April (the worst since the general offensive at the beginning). We are being warned to expect another rise in fighting before the turning over of the civil administration to Iraqis in June. We will see what that means on the ground both for security and who governs. But watch the daily averages.