U.S. Casualties Continue to Drop Sharply

Strategy Page ^ | March 13, 2006

[jmc1969]

Apparently most Shiite religious and political leaders are working hard to dampen attacks on Sunnis by radical Shiites, in an effort to reduce sectarian strife and avert the threat of civil war. While some radical Shiites, and even foreign analysts, believe that a civil war would actually solidify Shiite control of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other moderate Shiite leaders seem to fear that open sectarian conflict would only prompt large scale intervention—both covertly and overtly—by foreign Sunni interests to support their co-religionists, which might also prompt the largely Shia Iranians to intervene in support of their co-religionists, and perhaps even the Turks, concerned about the threat of Kurdish autonomy.

While most Western analysts apparently put the odds of a civil war breaking out in the near future at about 2:1, the level of sectarian violence has fallen in the past week or so from the very severe outbreak that occurred after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. This seems to have been in response to calls for calm. Despite this, though at times it's difficult to determine the motivation for an attack, in some areas incidents of sectarian violence continue. Before the Samarra mosque attack, Coalition intel folks were giving 1:1 odds on the possibility of a civil war in Iraq. Now they're saying it's closer 3:1. But this would not be your normal civil war. The Sunni Arabs are greatly outnumbered, both in terms of population (there are four times as many Shia Arabs and Kurds), and weapons (the Sunni Arabs have no airpower, or heavy weapons like artillery). The great hope of the Sunni Arabs is interference from neighboring Sunni Arab countries. This would have to get past American troops, and considering the quality of neighboring Sunni Arab armies (Syria, Saudi Arabia), this won't happen. On the Shia side, there is Iran, which could intervene for the Shia Arabs. American troops would also block this, as would Kurds and a lot of Iraqi Shia Arabs. In practical terms, what Iraqi Sunni Arabs have most to worry about is steady pressure on them to leave the country. Over ten percent of the Iraqi Sunni Arabs have already fled the country, and many Kurds and Shia Arabs consider that a good start and one of the best things Sunni Arabs have ever done for Iraq.

The violence has shifted away from American troops, who are suffering 60 percent fewer casualties this month than in the past year. and more towards Iraqi security forces and civilians. Part of this is because there are simply more Iraqi police and soldiers patrolling the streets and policing the neighborhoods. Where there are about two American advisors for every hundred Iraqi security troops, these Americans are there to advise, not fight. And the Iraqis are doing the fighting, and taking the casualties. American troops are still making raids and patrols, but there has also been a sharp decline in terrorist attacks. Some six months of sweeps and battles in western Iraq has shut down many of the Sunni terrorist sanctuaries. Indeed, many al Qaeda terrorists have fled western Iraq for towns and villages on the Iranian border. Iranians don't like to advertise the fact, but they do provide support to al Qaeda, despite al Qaeda's attacks on Shias (for being heretics.) Iran would also like to see a civil war (ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs) in Iraq. If that were to happen, Shia Arabs would be 75 percent of the Iraqi population, and likely to side with Iran on many issues.

[RightWhale]

They should not be making stories out of this kind of thing while there is a hot war going on and troops are in harm's way.

[American Quilter]

Bad news for the Democrats.

[John O]

Waiting to see this on the front page of the NY times. (Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath. I'm a conservative after all, I'm not stupid)

[MikeA]

Progress continues to mount while the US news media and their rigged polls continue to beat the drum of failure and the need for immediate surrender in Iraq. Fortunately our troops ignore that background noise and continue to do heroic work in improving the situation in Iraq a little bit each day. And it's all starting to add up into measurable progress, most of it ignored by the lapdog media.

[My2Cents]

Yeah, I don't recall seeing this news through they usual suspects (MSM).

[topher]

Good News you will not hear on the MSM.

But with weapons being built in Iran to blow up US Troops, it is time to open a bombing range in Iran - see if we can destroy underground nuke bomb sites as well as IED factory sites.

No sense in just setting off fireworks on the 4th of July...

[jveritas]

Most excellent news.

[kittymyrib]

The Dems are quick to explain that our very low casualty rate is due to the fact that our troops have such good equipment and medical care that more of them are ending up at Walter Reed with missing limbs. This is bad in their twisted minds, because these young warriors should have been fatalities. They are beyond despicable. Meanwhile, the young warriors who have cheated death show such indominable spririt that we should all stand in awe of them, and certainly not put them down as the msm does.

[orionblamblam]

does anyone know of a database or graph showing casualty rates (death rates preferable) among US troops in Iraq since the start of the war? I think it'd be interesting to see if there are trends... I recall hearing that attacks on US troops plummetted immediately after the initial reports fo Abu Ghraib came out, but that attacks went back up once the jihadists figured out that Americans were actually ripping into our military for that.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Casualties are not just the killed but also the wounded.

[george wythe]

If you compare the last month for which statistics are available, the number of deaths have remained about the same, while the number of injuries have declined.

Feb 2005: 58 deaths, 414 injuries
Feb 2006: 55 deaths, 300 injuries

source with charts

Some other charts:

US Deaths by month

US Wounded by month

[orionblamblam]

Excellent sources. Thank you!

[XJarhead]

Deaths have dropped for four months in a row, and this month is looking even better. Good news that is remarkably absent from the MSM.

[facedown]

bttt

[Cruz]

good links

[Southack]

U.S. casualties are down 60%. U.S. fatalities are down even more. The turning point was the October Iraqi constitutional referendum/election.

U.S. Fatalities (KIA + disease/suicide/auto accidents, etc.) in Iraq:
October 96
November 83
December 66
January 61
February 53
March 9*

So you can see the trend pretty clearly going down from 96 fatalities back in October to 9 so far by mid-March (it's March 14th in Baghdad right now).

This is *not* what you would see if the insurgency was gaining or even maintaining its organization. This is *not* the trend taht you'd see if U.S. forces were putting a stop to some sort of Iraqi "civil war."

It *is* what you'd expect from diehards (e.g. Saddamites and Al Qaeda fanatics) as their leadership and supply posts were taken out by U.S. and Iraqi Army raids.

Consider: U.S. casualties down 60%, U.S. fatalities down 80%, fewer terrorist attacks on us and on Iraqis, a growing Iraqi economy, a growing Iraqi population (from 24 million in 2003 to 27 million today), and increased Iraqi voter participation (from 60% voter turnout in January of 2005 to 63% in October and up to 70% voter turnout in Iraq's December parliamentary elections).

[Marine_Uncle]

All we can do is continue as you ably have shown, to remind Freepers of the realities. If they are not equiped to understand, then so be it.

[XJarhead]

Well, a reduced number of U.S. fatalities does not necessarily mean an overall reduction in violance. It could also be symptomatic on Iraqis performing more security duties, and U.S. troops less. But of course, that's a "winner" for us too, because it shows that efforts to develop the Iraqi military are succeeding.

[Retain Mike]

One thing I have yet to see discussed is the fact Iraqis are Arabs and Iranians are Persians, and the two ethinic groups traditionally have not liked each other. One thing I have seen discussed is loyalty to family and tribe amoung Arabs as more important than religious affiliation. There have got to be sources around who do not assume away or who are not ignorant of this traditional barrier to Shi'ia affiliation.