On Iraq casualties

[Blog]

Instapundit has a post I thought was actually rather amazing so I'll just go ahead and copy the whole thing.

WAR AND PEACE: Some interesting numbers:

While every lost serviceman and servicewoman is certainly tragic and should be mourned, the actual statistics tell quite a different tale from the MSM and Democratic doom-and-gloom outlook. Comparing the numbers of lost US military personnel to past years, and past presidential terms, may even be a shock to supporters of the war.

Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you wil find quite a few surpises. First of all, let's compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.

George W. Bush . . . . . 5187 (2001-2004)
Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . 4302 (1993-1996)
George H.W. Bush . . . . 6223 (1989-1992)
Ronald Reagan . . . . . . 9163 (1981-1984)

Even during the (per MSM) utopic peacetime of Bill Clinton's term, we lost 4302 service personnel. H.W. Bush and Reagan actually lost significantly more personnel while never fighting an extensive war, much less a simulaltaneous war on two theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan). Even the dovish Carter lost more people duing his last year in office, in 1980 lost 2392, than W. has lost in any single year of his presidency. (2005 figures are not available but I would wager the numbers would be slightly higher than 2004.)

In 2004, more soldiers died outside of Iraq and Afghanistan than died inside these two war zones (900 in these zones, 987 outside these zones). The reason is that there are usually a fair number that die every year in training accidents, as well as a small number of illness and suicide. Yet the MSM would make you think that US soldiers are dying at a high number in these zones, and at a significantly higher number than in past years or under past presidents. This is all simply outright lies and distortion.

You'd think this would get more attention.

UPDATE: John Kluge emails:

The guy at red state gets it about half right on military deaths. He is absolutely right that soldiers die in accidents and of natural causes when they are in garrison. What he doesn’t take into account is that the military was much larger under Carter, Reagan and Bush I than it has been under Clinton or Bush II. Clinton and Bush II are really the only two comparable numbers. Looking at those numbers, it appears that the Iraq, Afghanistan wars have resulted in an increase of 885 dead over what could have been expected through normal garrison operations in Bush II’s first term. That is not too bad when you consider that Bush has liberated two countries and fought a prolonged insurgency in both and that America lost over 1,000 dead in taking Vichy French North Africa in 1942 (that was before we even so much as fired a shot at the Germans).

Good point.

http://instapundit.com/archives/029284.php

[Talsek]

It's interesting that you post this, because just this past Sunday I came across an update to the series of 'Iraq Status Snapshot' articles in the New York Times. (The most recent one is here for anyone interested). After reading that and this instapundit article, I decided to do a bit of research. I focused on the suggestions made in the John Kluge update at the bottom of your post. Here's what I found:

2001-2004

Avg. US Military Size: 1,279,835
Fatalities: 5187
Fatality Rate: 0.405%

1993-1996

Avg. US Military Size: 1,576,884
Fatalities: 4302
Fatality Rate: 0.273%

Change in fatality rate from 1993-1996 to 2001-2004: +48.56%

For the above calculations, I took fatality numbers from Blog's post and active military data from the Department of Defense reports (at http://www.dior.whs.mil/). There is obviously a fairly significant margin of error, as exact fatality numbers are difficult to track down sometimes, and the military size figures are based on fiscal year rather than calendar year. Still, this data does provide at least a different way to look at the data in the instapundit article.

Another thing to consider is that fatalities were on the rise in 2004, and continued at the same rate or higher in 2005. (According to http://icasualties.org/oif/, fatalities for 2003-2005 were 486, 848 and 846, respectively). Taking that into consideration, using only first-term figures to compare fatalities under Bush to those under Clinton seems rather worthless in the long run (though I understand you've got to work with what you've got!).

Note that I'm not trying to push any agenda or sway folks in any particular direction. I just happened to read a few interesting articles with common themes over the past few days, and Blog's post motivated me to research things further. Do what you will with all these numbers!

[Maelgrim]

Near a decade of military and technological development, and it's a surprise that more people die in wars nowadays?

Are people really that stupid? That's like the Japanese turning around and blaming the head of government for killing more troops than his predecessor during WW2.

Of course more troops died. Prior to that, countries weren't privy to the ability to drop small suns on each other. Prior to about five years ago, there weren't weapons with repeaters so fast that four bullets were fired before the first had left the barrel available for general purchase either.

I'm not in ANY way shape or form saying the losses are acceptable. Only that looking at raw numbers neglects to include all the variables present.

[Wrent]

Neglecting to address all the variables is rather the point, in my opinion.

It is so much easier to make statistics into what you want people to see and think if you make sure they can't see underneath table you lay them out on.

[Darion]

To expand on Talsek's figures somewhat:

2001-2004

Avg. US Military Size: 1,279,835
Fatalities: 5187
Fatality Rate: 0.405%

Major Military Occupations Going On During This Period: 2
Accidental Deaths: 2109
Combat Deaths: 1102
Illness Deaths: 859
Suicide, Homicide, Other, Undetermined: 1117

1993-1996

Avg. US Military Size: 1,576,884
Fatalities: 4302
Fatality Rate: 0.273%

Major Military Occupations Going On During This Period: 0
Accidental Deaths: 2241
Combat Deaths: 1
Illness Deaths: 774
Suicide, Homicide, Other, Undetermined: 1286

Change in fatality rate from 1993-1996 to 2001-2004 discounting combat deaths, since there was only combat going on for the latter: 0.319% (modified death rate '01-'04) - 0.273% = 0.046%

Congratulations, you have just proved that people get killed in wartime. None of the changes in the other numbers are statistically significant, even given the variations in force size.

The preceding was all taken from this report, which is the same place you got your numbers I believe.

[Savaric]

In the navy we bitched about our jobs a lot (bitching is way to vent). One job we hated and whined about a lot was having to fill up the oxygen cart when it was low cause we had to cross the runway on the other side of the base and dealing with the tower was aggravating cause you had to ask permission and there were other annoyances. We used to think those guys up in the towers worst part of the day was probably dealing with us and giving us a window to cross the runway while they drink their cup of joe. The fact is we had it great, I wasn't on a ship and I slept in my own apartment.

Anyway, what I'm saying is attitudes seem to exist regardless of proportion. Always some kind of outrage, some kind of unhappiness with how things currently are. Here's another example: I was the tool control po. No matter how tight I had my tools looking they would hit me on something. They looked like shit when I took them over and I'd get hit on things like the tools being too worn or dirty. Then I revamped them and I'd get hit on shadows not being painted for all the tools, then the numbers not in the right ascending order, increasingly more petty shit, you get the idea.

Well this is a rant but just look at the casualties for ww I and ww II, then maybe korean war and then vietnam. Do you see a pattern? Make sure when you hear a number of military personnel killed that they are not mixed with mishaps. More people are killed in drunk driving accidents in maybe a month than all the causalties we've had over there- but no one is crying foul about that, are they?

[Talsek]

Originally posted by Darion
Change in fatality rate from 1993-1996 to 2001-2004 discounting combat deaths, since there was only combat going on for the latter: 0.319% (modified death rate '01-'04) - 0.273% = 0.046%

Congratulations, you have just proved that people get killed in wartime. None of the changes in the other numbers are statistically significant, even given the variations in force size.

The preceding was all taken from this report, which is the same place you got your numbers I believe.

I got the casualty figures at another site, but that's really pretty irrelevant. The point you highlight is the same one I was shooting for. It's not normally anything I would have cared to research in depth, let alone post about, but I happened to come across several similarly-themed articles/posts in a short time that for some unknown reason sparked my interest.

But yes, if you take out combat-related deaths, military personnel die at the same rate regardless of who the president is. And if you fight more wars, more people die. Sounds about right to me. As expected, I wonder why I felt the need to examine the numbers, and I acknowledge the exercise as a complete waste of time :P.