A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq

A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq


Monday May 23, 2005 1:01 AM

By The Associated Press

As of Sunday, May 22, 2005, at least 1,630 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,244 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians.

The AP count is seven higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 11 a.m. EDT Friday.

The British military has reported 87 deaths; Italy, 21; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Spain, 11; Bulgaria, eight; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, El Salvador, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,492 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,135 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5024304,00.html

whatever end is instore for Iraq.

It is not any where near the REAL numbers. Hell, they lie to us about everything, why would they stop at soldier deaths?

and would like to see a thorough analysis in one place. And when it is "US Troops" I find this misleading as outsourced contractors and Chilean mercenaries and hired Iraqi 'police' and .... are all to be included yet the numbers don't show up in such narrow analysis as this report or even the progressive news reports. The Pentagon can and is making a comprehensive and legitimate 'counting of the dead' impossible.

"The occupiers should leave immediately," he explains while sipping tea, "They only came with their own interests and we can manage Iraq for ourselves. We do not need them for any reason."

Esp. after more than 2 years of fighting?

My Comment: It will take years before we ever know the truth, if ever. I'm certain the toll on the Iraqis is much higher than the 100,000 when all factors come into play. Casualties of war are not just those gunned down on the front lines. There is one certainty-THE PENTAGON IS LYING EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, that's what they do. Here is some food for thought if you are curious:


In November 2003 a Surgeon at the Ramstein medical base in Germany stated that it had received 9,500 casualties from Iraq needing surgery including over 3000 amputations. In the same month a chief administrator at Baghdad airport stated that it had shipped out around 22,000 injured servicemen and women. In April 2004 the Veterans association stated that it had received 26,633 disability claims from servicemen returning from Iraq. Two months later on the McLaughlin political show aired by CNN, discussion was on a casualty figure centred around 27,000.That in its own confirms the other statistics given above. From various blogs and articles from surgeons, doctors and medical staff, it seems they were dealing with around 50 casualties a day, somewhere in the region of 1,500 a month. Now here is where I have to start speculating and piece the information together as Sherlock Holmes would do .Since April 2004 Najaf exploded in violence twice and the same can be said for Fallujah each incident taking approximately a month to contain. Both Najaf and Fallujah caused extensive resistance not only too those areas but extended out to other areas in Iraq, so that from that, there would be an increase in casualties, I would put it at double the average, around 3,000 each for these 4 months totaling 12,000 casualties. From April 2004 to today January 2005 is ten months, using the template average of 1,500 casualties per month is 15,000 and adding a further 1,500 casualties per month for those four explosive months in Najaf and Fallujah gives a further 6,000. Therefore that leaves a total of 21,000 casualties from April 2004 to date, add that to the Veterans association figures of 26,633 casualties pre April 2004 giving a total of 48,000 casualties. Using a rough guide of 1 soldier killed for every 8 wounded gives a figure of 6,000 killed.


In my opinion the true casualty figures of Iraq is around 6,000 servicemen killed and 48,000 wounded. Totaling 54,000.If my figures are accurate then the pentagon is only reporting, making public 20% of the casualties. Many people will state this cannot be possible. They cannot hide that amount. Vietnam was a good reflection initially 6,000 Kia were reported later that rose to 58,000 and later a further 40,000 were deemed missing in action .So if Vietnam is anything to judge, then most certainly casualty figures are manipulated for public consumption.


As the above report suggests, it is more than likely that US casualty figures are being manipulated. So as to minimise the negative impact on public opinion only the barest minimum are being reported. This has been further substantiated by reports and photographs of mass graves in Iraq, containing the bodies of U.S. servicemen. This cover-up has been further assisted by the fact that more than 30,000 US service personnel are not US citizens, but are actually serving in the US military in order to obtain US citizenship. That being the case with these so-called ‘Green Card Soldiers’, the US military authorities are under no obligation to publicly acknowledge their deaths. Indeed, concealing the real US casualty figures has now become something of a US military tradition, as the following article reveals.

http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2703


U.S. Suffered Over 20,000 More Military Dead During Vietnam War Than Previously Reported
By Ted Sampley – U.S. Veteran Dispatch, September 1998

The U.S. Veteran Dispatch has uncovered Pentagon records revealing that the United States suffered nearly 20,000 more fatalities during the Vietnam War era than the 58,182 servicemen whose names are engraved on the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

According to a U.S. Army file called TAGCEN which contains over 293,000 Army casualty records, there are 19,644 U.S. Army servicemen who were killed or died between January 1, 1965 and December 31, 1975 that are not counted as Vietnam war dead because their death certificates were written in other countries, including the United States.


Also see: First US Soldier Killed in Iraq Not an American
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=677

Or Here:
www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1322.htm#002

was as of that date. I saw that McLaughlin show and it included PTSD victims as well as physical injuries.

Another thing, Ted Sampley? Ted Sampley is a vile piece of shit. I wouldn't believe him if he told me 2 + 2 = 4.

If there were 6,000+ DEAD from the Iraq war, we'd know about it. It would leak out somehow.

was not my figure. In fact that figure I would consider inaccurate as methods of getting troops off the mark are improved and "survival" rates are higher. So less body bags more Prosthetics, some consolation huh?

Do you doubt that the Pentagon Lies? Daily.

Do you question the truth of the Pentagons casualty cover-ups in Nam?

Do you believe Dick Cheney when he says we will be greeted as liberators?

Do you believe Bush-Rummy-Wolfie when they say cost will be $2billion-$170 billion later?

"The occupiers should leave immediately," he explains while sipping tea, "They only came with their own interests and we can manage Iraq for ourselves. We do not need them for any reason."

a strech and a half. You don't think icasualties.org would be all over it or MotherJones or someplace?

Is that reported in the media ..or do they just report those died on the spot or soon after ?

"Truth is the first casualty of war"

recognizing those who've died stateside.

happy that only 6-10% of the injured die because of the great medical care. Also note, when they talk about the number dead, it's the number that have died in Iraq.

Another thing is the stories about the mass graves of US soldiers. There was the reporter who was killed by US troops that was working on it. And there were two reports of Iraqis finding the graves and turning them over to the Red Cross. There are also reports of dead bodies being dumped in the rivers. Most believe these are foreigners who have joined up for their citizenship. 15% of the armed forces is foreign.

And I have heard stories of people wondering why their children are not on the list.

one was 6% and the other was 10%. Those are the percentages of the injured troops that die. This is the best record of any war in history, so the Pentagon is giving these figures to show how good the medical treatment is.

And, the Pentagon is updating the fatalities with injured who've died stateside (there have been threads posted up here re: that.)

injured. And we've had heavier fighting since last April. Greg Palast said that during the Falluja assult, 200 injured soldiers were air-lifted to German. 450 showed up. His question was - who shot the other 250 on the plane.

It might reassure you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3688105

Falluja. The DOD reported 200 injured and flown to Germany. 450 injured got off the plane. Mr. Palast asked who shot the other 150 on the plane.

casualty wasn't one of the ones counted. It's not like they're all in one place counting, doing a soundoff or something.

They're dealing with their grief. Unless they have a suspicion already, what would make them double check on this website?

There's no automatic clearinghouse for military families who've lost servicemen, no place they definitely, countably, all gather. A third party would have to somehow put out a public call to all families who have lost members to initiate contact with them. Then they could match names and point out the over-number of families whose loved ones aren't officially recognized.

I wish somebody would; but picture what a strange undertaking that would be.

If an additional 6-7,000 are dead, SOMEONE would know and would squeal.


That hasn't happened.

You are surmising something. It sounds so logical to you that you portray it as fact, but you can't know it for a fact.

What is logical to me is that families rebuilding their lives after the death of a loved one aren't thinking of going to a website to make sure the dead one's name is there. They know he's dead. They're doing the things you do after a loved one dies. Friends and co-workers, ditto. They're picking up the pieces, moving forward with their own lives.

They would have no motivation to go to that site unless someone first introduces a suspicion in their minds.

http://www.cafepress.com/radicalfringe.16494371

how many more will die for bush's lie?

The best way to harm the anti war effort is to make the administration, which got us into this stupid mess by lying, seem credible. And claiming that there are thousands of "hidden" war dead or that wounded soldiers that die later aren't counted is a quick way to undermine our credibility and bolster that of the administration. As much as I hate this administration, neither the fact nor logic support claims that there are 1000's of undisclosed US war fatalities. Check out:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3688105

onenote

My Comment: The focus on numbers and body counts can be quite narrow and when we take all factors into consideration we will find that the "numbers" of deaths in this most recent 'War' in Iraq will easily be a million and more-yes that's MILLION. Factor in the long term consequences of everything. Now also to focus on just the war casualties turns our attentions from the entire tragedy. here's one example of why this means millions of deaths:The War in Iraq Costs the United States $171,644,167,509-
Instead, we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 7 years. how many died from hunger which could have been prevented but instead....
Far more damaging to the anti-war effort, of which there is very little, is to underestimate the consequences and the totality of this slaughter.

Here's the Article:
Body Counts and Other Metrics of a War of Frustration

Numbers, "metrics," ways of measuring success are now multiplying in Iraq. This in itself is a measure of frustration. Victory seldom needs metrics. Okay, maybe once upon a time, quantifiable loot and slaves mattered; more recently, the metric of victory was territory conquered -- and when American troops reached Baghdad and the Bush administration thought its war a raging success, no metrics were necessary.

Our iconic metric of war, which also proved a measure of a losing war, was, of course, the body count which we associate with Vietnam. The body count was, however, an invention of the later years of the Korean War, a way of measuring "success" once the two sides had settled into the bloodiest of stalemates and the taking of significant territory -- in fact, the wild movements of armies up and down the Korean peninsula -- had become a thing of the past. In a sense, the body count, aka "the meat-grinder," was from its inception both a measure of nothing and a measure of frustration.

<snip>

As we all know, from time to time, "civilians" or "private security contractors" are reported to have died in Iraq (most horrifically when 4 employees of Blackwater Security Consulting were ambushed in their SUV, murdered, and mutilated in Fallujah in March 2004). These days, when a convoy of private-security SUVs is ambushed in Baghdad or a helicopter transporting some "civilians" is shot down, it makes the news. But unlike with the official military death count -- the ever-updated number of soldiers the Pentagon reports as dead in Iraq -- the deaths of private security contractors generally are neither recorded, nor tallied, though a partial list of 237 such "fatalities" can be found at the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count site. Deadly attacks on such "civilians," as long as they are out of the spotlight and away from the cameras, evidently regularly go unreported.

In Iraq, the numbers of "private security contractors" -- always referred to politely as such in the American press, never as "mercenaries" or "hired guns" -- is unknown. There can be no question, however, that they make up by far the second largest contingent of "coalition" fighting forces in Iraq, well ahead of the British. Estimates of the number of foreign hired guns in Iraq usually fall in the 15,000-20,000 range, with possibly tens of thousands of Iraqi hired guns thrown in as well. According to Agence France-Presse, 60 foreign firms, with exotic names like Blackwater and Custer Battles, as well as 40 Iraqi firms, are in the mercenary business there. But as with their casualty figures, so their force numbers exist in a murky world beyond all public math.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2709