Home > Iraq and American Death Count to 2017
Wars and conflicts International USA
The major problem of war, aside from the death and destruction that it causes, is that it becomes extremely difficult to obtain accurate information about the events leading up to a conflict, about what is occurring at the present, and what is to be expected for the future. Basically, the most universally applicable statement regarding war is that "The first casualty of War is Truth".
The reasons for the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies are varied, what is occurring at present depends on whom you chose to believe, and what can be expected for the future depends on your interpretation of the data. Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz and Professor Linda Bilmes in January 2006 estimated the economic cost of the Iraq war based on a gradual troop withdrawal by 2015 at close to $2.5 trillion. This unfortunately is only the minimum monetary cost of the war, since it was based on a troop reduction by 2006 with a complete gradual withdrawal by 2015. This report does not take into account the troop surge announced earlier this year which has no end in sight since the democrats’ withdrawal timetable allows U.S. war in Sunni region to go on, and since military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon.
The human cost of the Iraq war, however, can not be so easily estimated, especially since it has been revealed that both USA and Iraq are concealing casualty figures. Some estimates have projected that US deaths will be approximately 12,000 by the year 2016. Extrapolation of data from other sites reveal approximately the same estimates for the total number of coalition casualties. These numbers are quite optimistic and do not seem to take into account an increase in the monthly casualty rate which is evident in the data.
Table 1 lists the total number of coalition casualties and Iraqi civilian death from March 2003 to March 2017. The numbers represented in bold are actual available data and the remaining data are estimates obtained from Figure 1 by using an approximately 20% increase in monthly casualties from 2007, for both coalition troops and Iraqi civilians, with the monthly rate decreasing as the region either becomes stable or as the occupation forces reduce their numbers. Casualties for coalition troops in the first two months of the invasion were not used in the monthly rate calculations.
Table 1: Iraq and American Death Count to 2017
http://www.chycho.com/Table_1_iraq_american_death_count_2017.html
The coalition death estimates in Figure 1 were obtained using simple linear extrapolation from the available data at Iraq Coalition Body Count. The Iraq civilian death estimates were obtained from the 2006 Lancet report and an approximation for the total number of deaths expected for 2007, based on the same monthly approximations as the coalition casualties.
Figure 1: Iraq Death Count for 2017
http://www.chycho.com/Iraq_American_Death_Count_2017.jpg
The numbers from this estimate are devastating. It is expected that over 8 million Iraqi civilians and well over 27 thousand coalition troops will be dead by March 2017. The monthly death rate for coalition troops will increase to approximately 300, while Iraq’s monthly death rate will increase to close to 95 thousand, which is frighteningly close to the more than 130,000 deaths per month witnessed in Rwanda in 1994 (see post from August 29th, 2006). These numbers do not included the expected death toll due to Depleted Uranium poisoning.
This data is only being presented for discussion purposes, but one very important question does come to mind: Why hasn’t the Congressional Budget Office, Department of Defense, or any other US governmental organization provided accurate estimates for the expected number of American troop deaths for the coming years? Projections must already be available. The least the Government of the United States can do is to inform parents of soldiers as to the likelihood of their children dying.
Additional Notes:
1. Reports began to come in during 2006 that the actual death toll in Iraq is much higher then previously reported, in excess of 10,000 fatalities. Also see “The Harring Report: America’s Young Man’s Meat Grinder"
2. “The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq” ranges from a low estimate of 8 to 1, to a high estimate of 16 to 1. This would put the total number of coalition troops expected to be seriously wounded in Iraq to between 220,000 to 440,000 by 2017.
3. In 2005 it was reported that 11,000 American soldiers from Gulf War I had died as a direct result of depleted uranium (DU), even though the war only lasted 4 weeks. The number of deaths from Gulf War II is expected to be much higher.
4. Since the beginning of the war approximately 4 million Iraqis have become refugees, 2 million abroad and approximately 2 million internally. This means that “every day, violence displaces an estimated 1,300 more Iraqis in the country; every month, at least 40,000.”
5. For an estimate of the number of deaths expected globally and how many people are required to bring peace to the world by 2012 see: Degrees of Separation, the Numbers Game, and How to Bring Peace to the World
chycho April 2007
www.chycho.com