Box score for the war

[JoFerret]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4766574/

April 17 - The U.S. military in Iraq doesn’t like numbers, or at least it doesn’t like to add them up. Soldiers killed in Iraq are announced, incident by incident, in terse press releases that give the scantest of details. The U.S. Marine Corps is the most parsimonious with information.....<snip>

In addition to the minimalist announcements, the military avoids keeping any sort of running tallies, particularly when things are going badly. The Pentagon has also studiously refuse to release estimates of enemy casualties, although these are indeed detailed in every after-action report. “We don’t do body counts,” was the explanation of Gen. Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander when the war began.

The American military is mindful of Vietnam, where the estimates of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese killed, released on a daily basis, proved a huge embarrassment when someone with a calculator figured out that the entire male population of Vietnam had been exterminated, at least on paper. This horror of numbers extends beyond just the death tolls; it’s as if statistics too are the enemy, or at least statisticians.
<snip>

Here are NEWSWEEK’s calculations:

150,000. The estimated number of all coalition forces in Iraq.... Only the British, with about 11,000 troops, have a significant force.

20,000. The number of U.S. troops who are being told this week that they’ll have to stay in Iraq another 90 days, even though they’ve completed their one-year “boots on the ground” deployment.

8,875 to 10,725. The minimum and maximum estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq so far, according to IraqBodyCount.org,....

3,466. The total of American soldiers wounded in action in Iraq through April 17, 2004, according to the Pentagon. There’s a lot of controversy about these figures.... Other estimates of wounded American soldiers range as high as 15,000.

793. Total coalition soldiers killed in Iraq since the war began

600. The number of people killed during the current siege of Fallujah, according to hospital officials there. They’re estimating though, since many dead are not brought to the hospital but buried immediately according to Islamic traditions. Most of them are civilians, and the majority women and children, according to these officials, whose accounts are impossible to verify since no independent journalists have been able to visit Fallujah.

600. The number of people killed during the current siege of Falluja, according to spokesmen for the Marines’ First Division besieging that city, who say that 95 percent of the victims are military-age men, and the others are human shields used by the resistance there. Again, a number that is impossible to verify. “That just proves that the Marines are very good at what they do,” one official said.
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[Robbien]

1. It is good that at least one major media outlet is complaining

The rest of them should also. The hostage count is also an interesting number. I didn't realize it was as high as 58 and that 41 have been released.

[Amerpie]

2. Iraqbodycount.org

It seems like these numbers haven't been updated in quite a while. I 'm sure they don't include the latest numbers from Faluja.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. I'd be willing to bet that the number of Iraqi civilian dead...

...is in the range of 25,000 to 35,000. Afghan civilian deaths are probably in the range of 15,000 to 25,000 by now.

[rocktivity]

3. Military age male = insurgent?

I'm supposed to feel GOOD about that? And how many American soliders have subsequently died of their wounds?

:headbang:
rocknation

[daleo]

4. I heard any boy over 10

was considered to be of military age. I don't know what they would call the upper limit - probably any guy who isn't using a walker.

[murielm99]

6. This is NEWSWEEK??

Wow!

I cancelled my subscription because I thought they were too pro-Bush.

This was right after the primaries. I thought they were horribly unfair to Dean, and to some extent, to Clark.

Maybe they are seeing the light.