Talk:Casualties of the Iraq War

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[edit] 404 link.

Anyone keeping track of this article should like to refer to [1] Kingturtle 15:42 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Title.

This page actually discusses casualties from both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, so I think it should be renamed to something like "Casualties in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq". Any objections? Suggestions for a better title? (I think it should remain one page, rather than having separate pages about the invasion and the occupation, because most people interested in either would want to know about both, and I think it's best to have "Casualties" as the first word of the title, since that's its subject. The title I just suggested, though, is a bit unwieldy.) Neow 01:44, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Non USA coalition wounded?

Does anyone have any statistics on wounded soldiers from other coalition countries besides the U.S.? The death tolls on this page are inclusive, but counts of wounded soldiers are limited to U.S. troops. Neow 00:43, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Number of mercenaries.

I have looked into the 18,000 number and cannot independently verify it. Aside from having many friends in theater, who dispute this, I was able to dig up a few sources: TDC

The fact that you or your friends in the theater cannot verify what a professional journalist has reported from the scene does not make it false, or even credibly disputed. I don't think U.S. troops generally get leave to travel around Iraq researching the deployment of armed contractors.
If you have seen an actual news source that claims there is a lower number of armed contractors, then it would be reasonable to modify what we say in this article, but if no such source can be found, then the claims in the story we do know about remain undisputed.
The suggestion that the 80 civilian contractors who were killed in the last couple of weeks were cooks and cleaners seems somewhat absurd to me; most of them were presumably armed security personnel. Neow

Thanks to overlapping contracts and multiple contracting offices, nobody in the Pentagon seems to know precisely how many contractors are responsible for which jobs -- or how much it all costs. http://www.newhouse.com/archive/wood080103.html TDC

The Pentagon has no incentive to disclose such information, and even if, in fact, nobody in the Pentagon knows the total number of contractors, an investigative reporter could still do independent research (for example, via contacts in the contracting agencies) to determine at least a lower bound for that number.
The story you cite above even reports one study's conclusion that "over the past decade, there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of contract civilians performing work the military used to do itself," which makes the figure of 18,000 sound at least plausible. Neow

The coalition refuses to disclose how many contractors -- and in particular, security contractors -- it has employed in Iraq, "out of legitimate concern for security," said one spokesman. http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/04/02/as_insurgent_attacks_increase_so_do_contractors_costs/ TDC

The fact that the coalition does not provide this information does not invalidate a reporter's research. It just means that the result should not be characterized as "official" or "officially acknowledged." Neow

even your own source disputes the statment in the article TDC

Hmm... given that the story had previously clarified that by "mercenary" it means private security personnel, I don't see how the quote below does anything other than affirm that at least 18,000 armed contractors are at work in Iraq. Neow

At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1 000 (about R6 300) a day. But their companies rarely acknowledge their losses unless - like the four American murdered and mutilated in Fallujah three weeks ago - their deaths are already public knowledge.

The individuals I spoke to about this said that most of the contractors they deal with perform duties such as cleaning, food service, electrician, plumbers etc..., and security duties are kept to low value instalations, except when the contractor happens to be highly trained (ex-special op). TDC 00:18, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The story I cited agrees:
although many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the US Department of Defence - and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers - they are not listed as serving military personnel.
So, your friends confirm the story's claim that DoD is using private (ex-special op) armed contractors to protect military installations.
I don't imagine many wikipedia contributors have any way of personally verifying how many security contractors are in Iraq. I certainly don't. News stories, then, are our primary source of information. Nor do I have any personal investment in showing a particular number in this article. I just don't see a justification, absent any credible report to the contrary, for censoring the information from the story I found, especially based on anecdotes you've heard that apparently only confirm what the story said. Neow 19:04, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Listen, my whole contention of the article is that the 18,000 figure supplied and the descrition leads the reader to believe that there are 18,000 private contractors in Iraq performing security duty. It should be made clear that while the number of contractors is roughly 18000, the duties of the 18,000 are not security, but cvilian related (mail, truck drivers, cooks, cleaners, clerical, technical, etc...).

II find it hard to believe that there are anywhere near 18,000 former SF members in Iraq working as security gaurds, but I find it completely believable that the bulk of the 18,000 are perfroming civilian duties (mail, truck drivers, cooks, cleaners, clerical, technical, etc...). .

As an example, a DOD contractor the other day was killed while driving a truck in a fuel convoy. Clearly he was not a combatant and had to rely on the US Army for his protection as he was unarmed.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0416/p02s01-usgn.html

While it is true that an unknown number of DOD contractors in Iraq are performing armed duties, I beleive this number is relatively small, and cannot be verified.

Do you follow me?TDC 19:39, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


I think I see the problem: you're either misreading the story I cited or superimposing your unverified beliefs on what it says. First, it does not say there are 18,000 miscellaneous contractors. (In fact, the story you cited on boston.com gives an estimate of some 30-40K contractors in Iraq.) It says there are 18,000 "mercenaries," which it specifically defines as "security guards" (it's not referring to "mercenary" cooks). I was trying to lead the reader to believe that there are 18,000 private security workers in Iraq because that's what was reported. Do you really believe you know more about how many armed contractors DoD has in Iraq than a journalist on the scene whose job it is to investigate such matters? I don't believe either of us has enough personal knowledge to contest that.
Second (even if you could back up your belief that there couldn't be 18,000 former SF members in Iraq, which actually sounds quite high to me too), the story only said that "most" of the "heavily armed Western security men" are former Special Forces soldiers. This leaves open the possibility that some unspecified portion of the 18,000 security contractors might be armed but not "heavily armed," such as the ones your friends said are posted on "low value installations" (presumably, the story was focusing on the heavily armed ones because they are more likely to be deployed in dangerous situations).
So, it could be true that there are a total of 18,000 armed security personnel in Iraq, and you could also be right that only some fraction of them are ex-SF troops. Can you give any reason aside from your personal beliefs to censor the reported information? Neow 23:40, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Update: here's a story [2] from the NY Times confirming that roughly 20,000 private security personnel are in Iraq. I'm not sure how relevant this number actually is to this article on casualties, though, so I'm only mentioning it here for the moment.

Outsourcing casualties? With economic and political advantages to outsourcing security in Iraq, what are the civilian contractor casualites? In what way is the US Congress monitoring total casualties, given that congressionally authorized taxes and borrowing fund these deaths?

[edit] Deaths of non coalition, non Iraqi forces?

A Cape Argus report [3] states that 6 South Africans (4 working for security companies) have been killed in Iraq (the SA government is not part of the coalition, strongly rejecting all the reasons given so far for the escalation, and the government has said that these people are there illegally as mercenaries). Under what section title do we list these kinds of deaths? "Other"? - Jeandré, 2004-05-04t21:18z

Ditto for the two German GSG 9 men that died near Fallujah. Germany is against the war, no part of the coalition, and the GSG 9 is in charge of security for personell and property of the German embassy. Their convoy was aparently mistaken for an US convoy and attacked. For detals see GSG 9 -- Chris 73 | Talk 22:53, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
Pedant)I have a list of over 50 security companies which are both based in the US, and have or 'have had' personnel in Iraq. I think that the 18,000 figure could quite well be said to be true, GIVEN that they are called security personnel. as opposed to janitors and also as opposed to mercenaries... some of those may very well be, for instance, janitors working for security firms and mercenaries employed by security firms but perhaps actually , for instance, reading poetry to children, but I think in the interests of strict accuracy they might more profitably be called security personnel...
I think that most people in Iraq are armed right now, unless they are the most hardcore of pacifists, or unable to hold or wield a weapon for some reason.Pedant 01:31, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

[edit] Review issues

(1) Though the subject is inherently controversial, does this article achieve a sufficiently neutral POV?

(2) Since it lists death tolls that change often, it needs to be updated regularly, or it starts to look dated. Is there a standard wikipedian way of handling this kind of thing, besides the {{current}} tag? Would this prevent it from qualifying as a featured article? Neow 18:39, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

The only way to update is to have someone come around and do it. The fact that it can never be current for more than a day or so at a time might make it harder to become a featured article, but I don't think it could be a total block up - if the article was good enough. -Litefantastic 20:19, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Would be best to state any moving-target figures as "as of 2004-xx-xx, xxxxx dead..." etc. So that, whether they are 'out of date' or not , they can at least be accurate.Pedant 01:36, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)


(3) Current and Latent Illnesses? Maybe this is explored more fully somewhere, or has been discussed and dismissed, but should the article have a separate section, or sections, that discuss projected levels of illnesses resulting more immediately from the fighting and its aftermath, as well as latent/future cases of illnesses, both mental and physical? Latent post-combat diseases often create significant, long-term, public health and veteran impacts. Obviously, many of the same types of impacts would affect non-combatants, etc.

A range of estimates/projections could be presented based on current information, as well as on past experiences with armed conflicts.

This issue is NPOV and a necessary factual element in properly planning for post-conflict veteran and health-care needs in the US and other coalition countries, as well as in Iraq.

--DBK 15:38, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A fine idea, but we can only present information about this issue if someone finds it. Have you seen any? This article is one of the few I've seen on this kind of subject, but the only actual number it gives is that 16% of Iraq war veterans suffer from PTSD or depression. I guess at least that fact could be added to this article. Neow 17:30, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
more info on this is available as time goes on, I think any info on casualties, past/present/future belongs here, if the info is available from a reliably accurate sourcePedant 01:36, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)
I do have an NPOV concern about the article, I think the article would gain an additional sense of history and proportion if the death rates were extended to include the years prior to 2003 at least a point signficantly before the first US invasion of Iraq. 66.92.17.35 23:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Not sure how that's relevant, let alone POV. Iraq does have its own historical article, after all. [[4]]. I wouldn't expect the article on deaths from the Holocaust to include a section on death rates of European Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals at a point signficantly before WWII. Gzuckier 15:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who is to blame?

Any discussion of war casualties invites the question of whose fault they are. Opinions about this vary as widely as the casualty estimates themselves.

Some, particularly those who accept the Bush administration's contention that Saddam Hussein's regime was an imminent threat to global security, viewed the war as the only effective way to confront this threat. They take comfort in the idea that removing Saddam from power has averted his continued ability to cause untold suffering and deaths among the people of Iraq, and they would tend to ascribe the blame for any and all casualties involved to Saddam himself, reasoning that his regime was so corrupt and oppressive that it compelled decisive action to thwart it.

Others, particularly those who viewed the war as illegal or unjustifiable, believe the war has established a dangerous precedent, sanctioning preemptive strikes by nations acting without UN authorization against enemies that do not pose an imminent threat. They would contend that the Bush administration, as the prime mover behind an unjustified war, is to blame for anyone who has died as a result.

Yet another view would be to reserve judgment as to whether the casualties of this war can be justified, recognizing that it may be decades before it will be clear whether the people of Iraq will ultimately be better off, and that it can never be known whether more Iraqis would have been killed by Saddam's regime, had it stayed in power, than have been killed as a result of the war.

Whatever one's perspective, the fact that many lives have already been lost in this war is indisputable and tragic, and the gravity of the war cannot be justly comprehended without giving full consideration to just how many human lives it has claimed.

The above essay, being entirely POV, needs to be attributed to one or more advocates:

I wrote this and expected when I added it that it would start a flurry of revision for NPOV, but to my surprise, nobody ever changed it.
I see that it's not NPOV enough, but I do think something like this (perhaps just a paragraph addressing the issue and linking to an article on the subject?) needs to stay here, just to acknowledge the elephant in this article's living room. Neow 01:38, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • Who says that "the fact...is tragic"? (Not that I disgree! But even POV I personally agree with is still someone's Point Of View)
Good point, but why not jump in and fix it instead of just deleting the whole section - maybe you'd like to move that paragraph to be included in the views of those who oppose the war? I'd be happy to see this whole section rewritten to be more NPOV, but I'm not the one who could do that effectively.
  • The claim that "it can never be known whether more Iraqis would have been killed by Saddam's regime" is an opinion, and is part of a commonly-given argument against the invasion that toppled him (by the way, I opposed the invasion - really!!)
So feel free to change "recognizing" to "because they believe" or whatever.
  • The claim that Bush, his staff or his supporters "tend to ascribe the blame for any and all casualties involved to Saddam himself" is unsupported conjecture. Did Rumsfeld say "It's not our fault 60 thousand Iraqis died"? (If he did, I'd be the first to want to nail him for such a callous remark!)
The claim was not about Bush or his staff, but about "some who accept the Bush administration's contention...", and I know at least one such person who has asserted that opinion, so this is just reporting a true fact about what some think. Maybe the attribution needs to be made more explicit?

Please help me 'find a home' for the above essay. Should it go in Views of the 2003 Iraq War, or what? --Uncle Ed 20:24, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your points are all well taken, but why not just fix them instead of summarily deleting the whole section, thereby inserting what appears to be your own meta-POV that it doesn't belong in this article? Neow 01:38, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't delete it. Deleting, in Wikipedia, refers to removing the information completely. I moved it. Moving, in Wikipedia, refers to a cut and paste operation, where the info is preserved. The article and its talk page are considered a unit; so I just moved it within the unit.

Oh, really? So do I have your go-ahead to go edit, say, Holocaust and just "move" the section on Revisionists and deniers into its talk page, explaining that it was out of place, and if anyone complains, well, Uncle Ed says an article and its talk page are considered a unit, so what's the problem? (Rhetorical, answer not required.) Come on, most talk pages are just a jumble of mostly irrelevant comments on things the article used to say. The article itself is the only thing most readers will care to look at.

Your point about why didn't I just fix it, is well taken. I have kept my eye on this page, with a view to fixing it as soon as I could. Your detailed comments above have finally given me enough insight to fix the passage. So I'm putting this task on my to-do list. Fair enough? --Uncle Ed 14:23, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Glad to hear it! Neow 19:32, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The essay begins with a title which expresses a point of view. It says, "Who is to blame?" This implies that something blameworthy has happened, which is a moral judgment. NPOV policy at Wikipedia forbids expressions of moral judgment as statements of fact. That's why there's no Nazi genocide or atrocites committed by Saddam Hussein article. Some people even dispute, rather energetically, that the Holocaust happened. So (last time I checked) the Wikipedia says only that "most Western historians" say it did and that "many others" say it didn't. There is an article on holocaust denial, I think, which covers this dispute in depth.

As for the essay (which I moved here for repair), it belongs I think in the context of moral arguments about the 2003 Iraq war. There are several articles touching on moral aspects, and they haven't been well organized yet. Every few months, I've taken a crack at it. But as an on-going event which is the biggest point of disputed in one of the most hotly contested political contests in the history of the free world (take a breath, Ed!) -- it's going to be hard to sort it all out quickly.

It would be a good start to identify the sources of these views:

  • The war is all Saddam's fault. Who says that?
  • The US-led campaign to toss Saddam out was justified. Who says that? Bush, I guess, but who else?
    • Did anyone say that tossing Saddam out makes up for the "tragic" deaths of civilians or others? What precisely have proponents of the coalition military campaign said about casualties? Do they lump together military and civilian? Do they rejoice over body counts (or deliberately ignore them), as implied or outright charged by the Iraq Body Count Project?
  • The war is all Bush's fault. It's "Bush's war". Who says either of these?
  • The US-led campaign to toss Saddam out was NOT justified. Who says this? Saddam, first of all, but who else?
  • Campaigns to get rid of evil dictators require UN "authority". Who says this? Kofi Annan? UN supporters in general? World government advocates in particular?
  • Or, no military action against another sovereign power is EVER justified, unless authorized by the UN. Again, who makes this slightly different claim?

We need to address the issues in more detail, because they are so complex. That's why I thought the essay was inadequate.

I thought it was important enough to preserve. So instead of deleting it, I moved it here for repairs. We are now discussing how to repair it.

However, I don't have enough mental power to repair it by myself. Sometimes I can only identify (not solve) all the problems. --Uncle Ed 14:41, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good points, especially that the section title implies a POV. Even though many have been killed in this war, some might not care to blame Bush, Saddam, or anyone else for that. Most of your other points are saying that we need to more precisely describe which group of people would express which views.
Hmm. I've been sabotaged :) Back when I wrote this essay, the NPOV policy only said that one should ascribe beliefs to people rather than asserting them, and that it's ideal but not required to give lots of background on exactly who thinks what. Now, I read the NPOV policy again, and I see that on August 24th, Cwass -- on his first day of contributing to Wikipedia, yet -- modified it to say that one should identify the person or population one ascribes a belief to rather than just saying "some believe that". That may actually be a good idea. So I'll agree the essay should be left here unless someone can find more citations on who believes what. Neow 19:48, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

I think it's well written, and only slightly POV, but that perhaps it doesn't belong in THIS article... wherever it ends up,though it should be linked to from here.Pedant 01:53, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

[edit] Iraqi Body Count

This line sounds a little confusing to me:

"A western group, the Iraq Body Count project, compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths resulting directly from coalition military action."

This, at least to me, sounds a bit misleading, suggestioning that the USA is directly responsible for the deaths. However, a large part of the body count is insurgent attacks on civilians. Perhaps the above line should be changed to something like "...directly from coalition military action and attacks by insurgents"?

No. It says resulting directly from coalition military action. And not US military action.
Regarding attacks by insurgents IBC clearly states the following: the database includes all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. --217.80.229.161 16:24, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry, when I said USA, I meant the USA and the coalition. I still think it sounds a bit misleading when it says "directly from coalition military action." Maybe I'm just dumb, but to the layman, that sounds like "this is the number of people the coalition killed in military operations". Maybe the article could clarify what that means, like "from coalition military action, which includes deaths caused by coalition forces and insurgent forces".
--65.161.65.104 07:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pedant)How about:

"A non-governmental organization, the Iraq Body Count project, compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths, including any deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations."
Comments? Pedant 01:53, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

Nowhere in this article is any mention of a count of deaths of Iraqi police, soldiers and recruits. Nor is there a count of civilian deaths caused by reactionary forces operating in Iraq. I've scoured the internet and find nothing. Maybe these victims are not important?! Also, the statistics at this site would mean more if there were some comparisons (or links to such), such as the number of civilian deaths caused by the Allied D-Day invasion in combating Fascism, that is, to recent wars. According to the above statement, the Allies would have been responsible for French deaths, oddly insinuating that the war against Hitler would have been somehow illegal. Also, the statistics seem for many here more important than the idealogy behind the "insurgents". No interest in that, ....? Whyerd 19:02, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's no lack of interest, it's just not the subject of this article. There's lots of info about the insurgents at Iraqi resistance. As for certain counts not appearing in this article, the problem is, they don't exist (as you've seen by scouring the internet). We can't give counts that aren't known. Neow 22:30, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
Also, the article says: "The website doesn't specify which deaths were by caused by coalition military action and which deaths were caused by the insurgency." This isn't entirely true, there is a quite detailed study at [5], and in particular 37% of the approx 30K casualties are attributed to coalition forces. Ketil

Why is the dubious Lancet study cited at all? Obviously a political ploy rather than a reliable study, it was released the week on the November presidential elections and has so many errors that it is laughable statistics! According to the study itself there is a five percent probability that there were less that 8,000 or more than 194,000 dead. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.7.37.221 (talk • contribs) .

It is another estimate, and while it is controversial (like all the other estimates), it did make an impact in media etc. Ketil

Original research?

One way to estimate the actual number of Iraqi enemy combatants killed is to consider the results of anonymous surveys of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq done in 2003 as part of a study on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) published in the New England Journal of Medicine [6]. In this study, 48% of the Army soldiers who had served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and 65% of the Marines said that they were responsible for the death of at least one enemy combatant.

Since at least 180,000 Army soldiers and 58,000 Marines served in Iraq in 2003, this means that a minimum of about 124,000 U.S. troops who returned from Iraq by the end of 2003 each believed they had caused the death of one or more enemy combatants. This would not include any deaths caused by Navy or Air Force personnel, such as those that resulted from the bombing missions during the invasion, nor would it include those killed since the beginning of 2004. However, this could reflect either more or less than 124,000 enemy combatants killed, as there are likely cases where one soldier felt responsible for the deaths of multiple Iraqis, where several soldiers each felt responsible for the death of the same person, and where soldiers were incorrect in their belief that anyone had died.


Another way to estimate the actual number of civilians killed is to consider the results of the previously-described anonymous surveys of returning U.S. soldiers [7]. These found that 14% of Army soldiers and 28% of Marines said that they were responsible for the death of a civilian, which means that a minimum of about 41,000 troops who returned from Iraq by the end of 2003 each believed they had caused the death of one or more civilians.

As with the former estimate based on these surveys, this would not include civilian deaths caused by Navy or Air Force personnel, such as those resulting from the bombing missions during the invasion, nor would it include those killed since the beginning of 2004. Again, note that this could reflect either more or less than 41,000 civilians killed, as there are likely cases where one soldier felt responsible for the deaths of multiple Iraqis, where several soldiers each felt responsible for the death of the same Iraqi, and where soldiers were incorrect in their belief that an Iraqi had died.

[edit] Slight ambiguity

Great article, so well done to everyone who's worked on it.

Regarding this paragraph:

Coalition casualties in the 2003–2004 conflict are now more than triple those of the 1990–1991 Gulf War, and Iraqi fatalities appear to have reached similar levels, though accurate counts of the latter are not available for either conflict. (In the Gulf War, coalition forces suffered around 378 deaths, and among the Iraqi military, tens of thousands were killed, along with thousands of civilians.)

I was not sure if it meant that the Iraqi casualties were roughly equal to their casualities in the first gulf war, or if they too were roughly three times as high. If someone could rephrase this to make it explicit, that would be great. Cheers, fabiform | talk 11:57, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC).

That's actually a relic from when this paragraph was up in the intro section of the article. Now that there's a separate section on coalition casualties, the comparison about Iraqi fatalities is out of place. Neow 18:59, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
agreed. If the numbers are provided, one can make their own comparison of the ratios oneself. And good job on this article! With many of the related articles, conflicts have prevented an actual functioning live article, not here... again, good job of consensus and editing!!!Pedant 01:53, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

[edit] poor article title

"Invasion_and_occupation_of_Iraq_casualties" That is a poorly formed noun phrase, as the most obvious reading is that it was "Iraq casualties" which were invaded and occupied -- of course, this makes no sense, so the reader stumbles, reparses, and figures out what was meant. This is used as a title of a link in at least one place, although it is not shown as the title of this article. I strongly recommend fixing the article title to a more straightforwad phrase, eg, casualties during invasion and occupation of Iraq.


[edit] question

I would like to be able to compare casulties to other relevant numbers. For Coalition forces I think this means the total number of servicemen deployed. It would be nice to also have the same numbers for the first gulf war. I also recently heard a female Iraq politician compare the Iraq casualties to the Iran-Iraq war. She said that the Iraq had 1 million killed, 1 million wounded and 1 million displaced. This may be totally inaccurrate, but it does point to the fact that all of these numbers are only relevant in context. Percentages of totals would allow us to compare to Vietnam and the World Wars.


[edit] Important distinction needed

Please answer this question. This article states that there were about 1,600 U.S. "casualties". It goes on to state that there were about 11,500 U.S. troops "wounded in action". I'm not sure if this is mistaken, or if you are using a different, but still valid definition of casualty, but I use the word casualty to mean "the total number of dead, wounded, and missing." If you are using another definition that is valid, or if I am misreading the information, please tell me. Lou

[edit] clarity

I think it is crucial to be clear, for each given number (a) who was killed (civilian, military, or insurgent) (b) who did it (coalition, insurgents, government forces, criminals) and (c) what is the connection (direct action or indirect effects). Without that the numbers are meaningless, particularly for any kind of policy decisions.

The Lancet Study summary reports "excess deaths" which is a brilliant piece of obfuscation... but from the raw data in the study one can derive a lot more specific estimates of violent deaths broken down by who caused them (insurgent, coalition, criminal or unknown). Those are the only meaningful numbers - which are actually quite interesting. With some work, one can ever arrive at a rough breakdown by category of victim.

IraqBodyCount similarly counts "all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent", a different but equally brilliant piece of obfuscation... but again the numbers broken down by category can be obtained from their detailed database.

This is key. Both sources assume that *all deaths* can be blamed on the US/coalition forces, and the assumption is incorporated into the way they count. They make no distinction between, for example, civilians killed by insurgents (for which the sole responsibility lies with the insurgents) and insurgents killed by US or Iraqi troops (which at least some of us would consider to be a *good thing*).

I'd like some comments on this. In a bit, I will go through and add explanatory notes about what each number includes, as appropriate. I will also pull the detailed data out of the Lancet study. There are a few other sources that should be added if they are not there yet - the PDA study and the AP morgue survey. ObsidianOrder 18:42, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adjusted fatality numbers?

What's all this about internal memos in the Pentagon stating that the death toll for American soldiers is around 9,000? It seems that this number accounts for all soldiers who were wounded in Iraq but died either in an other country or en route.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Yes, I heard such rumors too. For the official number they're only counting soldiers who clearly died in Iraq because of the conflict. However, the actual number of soldiers who died in a death related to the conflict is much, much higher. The latter involves wounded dying in other countries and other more ambiguous cases.
This of course has everything to do with the manipulation of public opinion [User: Guernica, 7 januari 2006, 16:35 CET]


Of course, the Pentegon does count such deaths as a soldier who drowned in a Kuwaiti swimming pool and a guy who was hit by a car in Bahrain.

Czolgolz 17:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos

Why do we have just one photo of an Iraqi and one of American coffins? Do you remember the photos of the Iraqi child that was hit in an areal attack and lost its legs and arms? I think it won the world press award or so. I think an article about casualties should include graphical coverage of the harmed civilians. Nameme 14:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No summary for Iraqi military casualties?

Why does the summary box atop the page have no row for Iraqi military casualties? Also, no total estimate. By the way, I've been trying to keep the numbers up to date at List of wars and disasters by death toll - would be good if they match. Cheers! BD2412 T 13:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The reason there is no list of Iraqi military casualties is that no agency is keeping track. All we have are vague numbers from the wire services and non-profit organizations. If you have a good source, feel free to add it. Czolgolz 13:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are numbers in the article - the lowest estimate of 4,895 is absurdly low, but at least there's a range from that to the high 45,000 estimate. BD2412 T 14:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factual errors in the current article (as of May 16, 2006)

I'd like to point out several errors I found on this page and propose that they be corrected:

1. "Iraqi Civilians 30,000-100,000 (The lower figure was given by G. W. Bush in a public speech on December 12, 20051; the higher one comes from the Lancet study). Lancet study."

Neither estimate as attributed above is of "Iraqi Civilians".

Bush made this claim in response to the following question, explicitly including non-civilians:

"Q Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators."

THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212-4.html

[Note: since first writing the 30,000 figure has now been changed to 35,161 which compounds the error. Bush did not give that figure as is claimed.]

And the Lancet study was not a civilian study. It was a total "excess deaths" study and did not make any attempt to distinguish civilians from any other Iraqis, or to exclude combatants. The report itself says: "Many of the Iraqis reportedly killed by US forces could have been combatants." And it's lead author has said, "The civilian question is fair. ..some of them may have been combatants, some probably were not... Thus, we are careful to say that about 100,000 people, perhaps far more were killed. We suspect that the vast majority were civilians, but we do not say each and every one of the approximately 100,000 was a civilian."


2. "estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians as of 29 October 2004 [9]"

Same problem as above. This is referring to the Lancet estimate, which is not an estimate of Iraqi civilians.


3. "estimated >36,533 during March-October 2003 ("100% sure" tally by survey in Iraq that assumes paramilitary bodies are not brought to morgues)"

This cryptic citation is referring to a figure from the People's Kifah, an Iraqi political group. These findings were published in August 2003 on the website of a former Wall Street Journal reporter named Jude Wanniski. Clearly it could not have been conducted up to October 2003 if the findings were already made public two months earlier. The time-frame given by the spokesperson was March-June 2003. http://www.wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2855


4. "(These include "all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, car bombings and beheadings by the "insurgents" and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation.")"

This paragraph is taken from an old and outdated description of the Iraq Body Count project, which must have been copied from its website some time ago. What is it doing in this section? It's completely misleading here. IBC is not even referred to in the section where it appears and the context seems to relate it to the three sets of figures which are directly above it, none of which have anything to do with IBC or that paragraph. It is not even currently accurate for the Iraq Body Count website, let alone these other studies, and so should not be there.


Next, the Civilian Casualties section:


5. "(Note that the groups making these estimates all define the word civilian to exclude the various paramilitary forces operating in Iraq as well as the official military forces that existed under Saddam Hussein's regime.)"

There are four "groups" mentioned after this "Note": The Lancet, The UN, People's Kifah and Iraq Body Count. But only Iraq Body Count and People's Kifah use this definition.

The Lancet does not define civilians in this manner because it did not define civilians at all. It was attempting to measure all excess deaths, as discussed above, and so used no definition of civilian.

And the UN study simply does not exist (see #7 below)


6. "One study done by public health experts from the Lancet medical journal published on 29 October 2004, found that an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the US invasion began."

Again, not an "Iraqi civilians" estimate.


7. The study that is asserted to be "The United Nations estimate of civilian casualties" is nothing but the Lancet study again, which has nothing to do with the UN. The footnote is to an interview in which somebody who works for the UN mentions the Lancet estimate. This is a completely erroneous citation.

The only UN estimate of Iraq war deaths that I know of is the UNDP/ILCS study which estimated about 24,000 war deaths as of May 2004. Though, like Lancet, this is also not limited to civilians. I didn't notice any reference to this study on the page, but it should definitely be included in this page: http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/overview.htm


8. "Another study by an Iraqi group, the "People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony," conducted a detailed survey in September and October of 2003 throughout..."

Again, dates are wrong. See #3 above. Also, it might be appropriate to note that very little of the "details" are in the public domain, ie: methodoloy of the survey..etc.

[edit] Invasion or Liberation?

I noted that the phrase "Invasion of Iraq" has been changed to "Liberation of Iraq". Whichever term is 'proper' is irrelevant, as there is no article titled 'liberation of Iraq', altough there is one entitled "invasion of iraq" (previously linked to before the change). I'd rather not change it myself, just bringing it up. Perhaps we can just link "liberation" to the "invasion" page, and have the best of both worlds? ;)

"Liberation" is obviously a POV. We can test it though. Let's ask the "liberated" and see what they think: "Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers." http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm - 68.44.112.218 05:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of dubious 'interpretation' of casualty studies

I've removed the following paragraph which was recently added:

"The Lancet study and Iraq Body Count project statistics, efforts to document civilian casualties incurred during the Iraq War, are not without technical problems. The Lancet study [27] makes a claim that 50% of the 100,000 estimated casualties are women and children while an in-depth Iraq Body Count (IBC) review of actual reported casualties (the Dossier of Civilian Casualties [28]) showed that 81.7% fatalities were male and 90.4% fatalities were adult. Given the large standard deviation in the Lancet study and the conclusions of the authors that their "results need further verification," other data are essential to inform their conclusions. The IBC study, with its disproportionate number of adult male fatalities, did not find the gender or age distribution suggested by the sampling in the Lancet study, which is relevant in that enemy combatants do not wear uniforms and are predominantly adult males. One proposed explanation is that enemy combatants and Iraqi civilian police personnel are included in casualty reports, distorting the impact of the war on the civilian population [29][30]."

The reasons for this removal include (but are not limited to):

1. False claim: "The Lancet study makes a claim that 50% of the 100,000 estimated casualties are women and children". This is not true. It must be based on this statement in the Lancet report: "28 of 61 killings (46%) attributed to US forces involved men age 15–60 years, 28 (46%) were children younger than 15 years, four (7%) were women, and one was an elderly man."

Thus about 50% women and children. However, these percentages are all based on all the raw data including the outlier Falluja cluster, which was excluded in making the 100,000 estimate. There were only 21 violent deaths used in the 100,000 estimate, and only 9 of these were "attributed to US forces". So there weren't "61 killings" used in the 100,000 estimate to begin with. The 50% claim, as derived from the above description, is not referring to the 100,000 estimate, and has nothing to do with it, but is instead referring mostly to raw data from Falluja which was discarded before making the 100,000 estimate.

2. IBC's Dossier says of its own data that it had age and gender information for only about half the deaths it recorded, so a disparity between IBC's age or gender percentages and those of another source are not necessarily conclusive of anything in particular. If all this data were available for all of IBC's deaths, these percentages might change.

3. The last sentence and a half are pure third-party POV interpretation and editorializing, sourced solely to some opinionated speculations and assertions on a right-wing blog.

68.45.226.214 11:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restoration of dubious 'interpretation' of casualty studies

I've restored the following paragraph, with modifications, that was recently removed:

"The Lancet study and Iraq Body Count Iraq Body Count project statistics, efforts to count civilian casualties incurred during the Iraq War, are not without technical problems. The Lancet study [27] makes a claim that there were 100,000 excess deaths after the invasion, that “violence was the primary cause of death” during that period, that these violent deaths “were mainly attributable to coalition forces” and that “most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children.” The study implies 50% of the 100,000 estimated excess deaths were women and children [28] while an in-depth Iraq Body Count (IBC) review of actual reported casualties (the Dossier of Civilian Casualties [29]) showed that, in the sub grouping for which gender data are available, 81.7% fatalities were male and 90.4% fatalities were adult. Given the large standard deviation of the Lancet sample and the conclusions of the authors that their "results need further verification," other studies are essential to verify their conclusions. The IBC study, with its disproportionate number of adult male fatalities, did not find the gender or age distribution suggested by the sampling in the Lancet study, which is relevant in that enemy combatants do not wear uniforms and are predominantly adult males. This raises the reasonable explanation that enemy combatants and Iraqi civilian police personnel are included in casualty reports, distorting the impact of the war on the civilian population. [30][31]"

The reasons for the restoration include (but are not limited to):

1. The Lancet study uses inadequate statistics and circular logic to make the case that excess deaths are indeed the cause of coalition action and that women and children are the featured victims. The above paragraph has been modified from the UK Guardian observation that 50% of the 100,000 excess deaths are women and children [8] to include the specific Lancet language.

2. It is irrelevant that the IBC study has gender data for only a sizeable subgrouping in the Dossier study; the n is more than large enough to establish a gender and age distribution that is distinctly at odds with the Lancet study. Since there is no official record of terrorists killed, the age and gender data in casualty studies are relevant.

3. To call a source a "right-wing blog" reveals the bias of the previous editor. IBC is as strongly left leaning, as are the Lancet authors, making the political orientation irrelevant.

        hey when you say that lancet is strongly left leaning do you mean lancet
is 'one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world'

just need clarification

4. The statistics used in the Lancet study are appalling, and it is sophistry that these statistics and various euphemisms ("excess deaths") are used to indemnify the authors from the consequences of stating that the coalition is killing thousands and thousands of women and children, which is how the study is and has been used [9].


This is all just POV. "Lancet study uses inadequate statistics and circular logic" That the supposed difference in age/gender percentages "raises the reasonable explanation" offered is not a fact. It's just your opinion, and the opinion of the right wing blog you cite. And this is all used to convey the POV and unsubstantiated claim that 'insurgents' are being counted as civilians. It's selectively choosing a particular POV sourced from a right wing blogger's editorial giving his POV. And there's nothing at all special about calling it a "right wing blog". That seems to be just a fact. Look at the rhetoric: "The casualty distortions detailed above demonstrate the lengths to which anti-war liberals will go to invalidate the humanitarian success of the coalition intervention." It says its mission is that it "remains committed to keeping an accurate tally of the life-preserving effect of the American intervention in Iraq." And it includes an "Iraqi survival counter" which claims to feature the number of Iraqis whose lives have been "saved" by the war. It advertises for "The best conservative radio talk show host in America is in the The War Room". It lists: "BRILLIANT THINKERS Thomas Sowell Walter Williams Charles Krauthammer Mark Steyn", conservative right wing pundits all.
Come on. If the term "right wing blog" doesn't apply here then nothing applies.68.45.226.214 05:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

This misses the point entirely. The "studies" in question, which are equally biased but quoted throughout Wikipedia and other media outlets as fact,

That the "studies" are "biased" is your POV.

do not make an attempt to distinguish between a heart-attack and a killed civilain, between a dead terrorist and a dead baby, yet the total numbers are tossed around as "civilian casualties." It is inaccurate to quote the Lancet study or the Iraq Body Count study (a left-wing web site) without qualifying this lack of attention to factual accuracy.

That complaint could only be applicable to the Lancet study. IBC does distinguish all those things. Lancet was a total mortality study, not a civilian study, and so of course it did not strictly distinguish those things. It was trying to measure all excess deaths in Iraq. The page says that it is not just civilians in the description of the Lancet study. If you have a complaint about people calling it a civilian study that would be more appropriate for the criticisms section of the Lancet study's page. It would be pretty tangential for the short description on this page.

The actual casualties - which is the point of the entry (Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003) - is less than the two widely disparate numbers quoted.

Aha, now we get right down to it. Really? I've never seen a scratch of evidence to that effect, and have seen mountains of evidence to the contrary. What is your source for that assertion? Another "interpretation" on a blog?

Yet, because User [68.45.226.214] dislikes one source but likes another, he or she ignores this reality. Thus an opportunity is lost to distinguish Wikipedia from the long list of left-wing media sources.

What say others?

I suspect most others would say that all you're trying to do here is prostelytize your entirely unsupported POV. If you know of an actual study into Iraqi casualties that supports your POV at all, let's hear of it.
"Lancet" (i.e. Hopkins) study is a textbook exercise in advanced epidemiology. I say advanced, because of the use of cluster sampling. It doesn't pretend to be anything else, although it has been trumpeted as many things by others, including unfortunately the Lancet itself in the beginning (i.e. claiming it as civilian deaths, rather than total deaths). The point of the study is simple epidemiology: total increase in total death rate after an event. Be it a war, a change in the speed limit, or an educational campaign to get people to wear condoms. Previous studies of war casualties in the Congo by the same team with the same methodology were greeted as engraved in stone from Heaven, because they did not conflict with US administration posture. If you want to claim the US isn't responsible for babies who die because they can't get simple clean water that they had access to before the war, well that's your opinion. Gzuckier 20:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
If you want to claim that "simple clean water" was available in Iraq, without having some data or having visited the country, that also is your opinion. It's also an unsourced one. You might want to look up the numerous studies, left and right, on how Saddam spent incoming money. You also might want to look up the US expenditures INSTALLING generators and water systems, that are being attacked by insurgents. If you want to claim that the insurgents aren't responsible for babies who die because they can't get simple clean water that they had access to before the war, well that's your opinion.
And medical journals are notoriously unreliable on any subject outside of treatment and infection. And miserable within those fields at times. They're not an unimpugnable authority by nature of being doctors.Mzmadmike 15:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Page listing Individual Casualties

Should there be a page with a list of the names/units of casualties? Then their bios can be put up? Just a thought....

Hal06

Are we going to have individual articles on every one of the tens of thousands of persons killed? Some of those articles would be forever stubs - how much can you say about an eight-year-old girl killed along with forty other people at a market bombing? A woman shot at a checkpoint while fleeing her neighborhood? An out-of-business auto mechanic whose house was hit by a stray shell? A twenty-something GI whose only claim to fame is that he was killed by some anonymous roadside bomb outside Tikrit. Casualties of the war are generally not notable (we had a similar discussion about casualties of the attack on the World Trade Center, of whom there were far fewer). bd2412 T 14:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. CNN.com already lists the names, units, ages, pictures, and causes of death of all the coalition fatalities http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/ and iraqbodycount.org lists what they can about the Iraqi casualties. I say leave things as they are Czolgolz 14:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

  • We should have the names with basic facts in a tabular format. We could divide the names. A-G one article, H-P one article, and something along this lines for every nationality.--71.107.197.67 01:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minimum total casualties = 49,023 49,132

The Lancet study estimated that 30,000 - 100,000 deaths had already occurred by September 2004.

    • Also, the 30,000 figure is not from the Lancet study. It's a figure given by George Bush in late 2005.

This figure does not account for thousands of deaths in the twenty-three months since then. The United Nations estimates that more than 14,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first half of 2006 alone. [10]. Newsweek maintains a highly accurate count which reports 45,017 Iraqi civilian deaths and 2,770 coalition deaths (total of 47,787) as of July 10, 2006.[11].

    • The Newsweek numbers have changed. I wrote this to you on the discussion page of "Summary of casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq":
    • BTW..i just looked at the Newsweek page today, which you had previously used (at just over 45,000 before), and now their total to date is 42,500, which now looks like it follows their stated methodology of using an average of the IBC min/max figures which are now around 40,000min-45,000max. So apparently about 3,000 have come back to life in the last week according to the Newsweek page, or there was some unexplained mistake or something. If you can figure out how that happened let me know. I don't see anything about it on the page. 68.45.226.214 19:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Note that Newsweek's report relies on a figure of 21,090 Iraqi civilian deaths by September 2004, and at least 23,927 additional Iraqi civilian deaths after the Lancet study was published. There were also between 1,236 and 1,605 additional deaths from July 10 to July 30, 2006 between media reports and U.N. estimates of unreported deaths. Therefore, there have been at least 46,253 Iraqi civilian deaths since the beginning of the war, and at least 49,023 total casualties. If the Lancet study is correct, there have been at least 55,163 Iraqi civilian deaths (30,000 as of Sept. 2004, 23,927 from Sept. 30 2004 to July 10, 2006, and 1,236 from June 11, 2006-June 30, 2006), and at least 56,399 total deaths (adding in 2,770 coalition casualties). bd2412 T 15:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Good morning. Per MSNBC and FOX news, 30 deaths on July 31, including murdered bodies found, casualties of suicide bombing in Kurdish-ruled province of Dahuk,[12]; 70 Iraqi civilians killed in attacks on August 1 in Beiji and Baghdad, [13]; 9 killed on August 2 [14]; ergo, death toll is now up to at least 49,132. bd2412 T 12:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Lancet study

Methods: Between May and July 2006 a national cluster survey was conducted in Iraq to assess deaths occurring during the period from January 1, 2002, through the time of survey in 2006. Information on deaths from 1,849 households containing 12,801 persons was collected. This survey followed a similar but smaller survey conducted in Iraq in 2004. Both surveys used standard methods for estimating deaths in conflict situations, using population-based methods.

Key Findings: Death rates were 5.5/1000/year pre-invasion, and overall, 13.2/1000/year for the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that through July 2006, there have been 654,965 “excess deaths”—fatalities above the pre-invasion death rate—in Iraq as a consequence of the war. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 were due to violent causes. Non-violent deaths rose above the pre-invasion level only in 2006. Since March 2003, an additional 2.5% of Iraq’s population have died above what would have occurred without conflict. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, though the actual numbers have increased each year. Gunfire remains the most common reason for death, though deaths from car bombing have increased from 2005. Those killed are predominantly males aged 15-44 years. '

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

There is a tremendous discrepancy between the Iraq Body Count and the Lancet study. Much of this is probably due to the fact that the IBC uses only media-reported, verified deaths, whereas the Lancet study is an actual estimate. In addition, the IBC only counts civilian and police deaths. One might expect the media reporting to be much higher in Baghdad, and this appears to be the case. Using IBC estimates and 2003 population estimates reported in Wikipedia, violent civilian deaths in Baghdad have totalled 0.429% of the population. In Diyala, it's 0.139% and in Sala ad Din it's 0.124% -- more than three times less than the Baghdad rate. Yet the Lancet study found that the total death rate (from all cases) was higher in these regions than in Baghdad (Baghdad between 2-10/1000, Salah ad Din and Diyala, as well as Ninawa and Al Anbar >10/1000). Note that the highest rates according to the Lancet study, but not the IBC, are in the mainly Sunni regions, where there has been a lot of fighting. It seems then, that the death rate outside of Baghdad is several times higher than is being reported. 24.68.180.163 06:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
so, an "Actual estimate" is better than a hands on count? And "It seems" is unsourced opinion.
I agree the counts may be different elsewhere. But you're not offering any evidence to improve the count.Mzmadmike 15:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do we count executions?

Some U.S. soldiers now face the death penalty for murders committed in Iraq... if they are executed, do we count them as casualties of the war? bd2412 T 18:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

No. Casualties only count in theater, or from wounds received in theater. Federal execusions would not count. Czolgolz 18:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

That's reasonable. bd2412 T 02:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] US casualties in 1989 same as Iraq?

The article currently states that "As a result of the second Iraq war and War in Afghanistan, the total US annual military casualty rate has tripled and returned to its 1989 rate of approximately 1700 casualties per year."
Now this claim seems incredible to me, what wars was the US engaged in in 1989 to have a casualty rate of 1,700? (per year?)
The referenced site for this information, http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/Death_Rates.pdf , seems to be down (or at-least I can't access it), so this makes me a bit suspicious.
What I'm thinking is that whoever put that claim in article is getting confused between Casualties (Killed and Wounded) and Fatalities (Killed only, i.e. death rate). Now the casualty rate may have been 1,700 per year in 1989, but that is not the death rate, and even the death rate in the "war on terror" hasn't been quite that big (though it's close). The Casualty rate for Iraq is far higher that 1,700 per year, if we go by the figures given in the article, it's something like 6,500 per year (dividing 24,996 by 3.8 years (46 months) ).
So can we please get some clarification of this claim, or have it removed? --Hibernian 05:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't make sense to me either. I just deleted it. The info and link is in this section. Maybe someone can make sense of it, or can find out what was meant to be said. --Timeshifter 06:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dec. 25, 2006. Iraq War. US death total equals 9/11 death toll.

An anonymous editor added this paragraph below to the article. Here is the revision difference. I took it out for discussion here on the talk page. December 25 was actually the day US deaths met and surpassed total 9/11 deaths of 2973. Search on Google News to see. --Timeshifter 07:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

On December 27, 2006, the total number of US troops killed in the conflict surpassed the number of victims killed in the 9-11 attacks (2,975). This may not seem directly relevant at first, in part because citizens of many other countries all over the world perished in 9-11. Nonetheless, it is an important milestone, because in the very early days of the war, when US casualties still numbered in only the low hundreds, defenders of the action would at the time argue that the human cost of the war for the US was insignificant compared to that of 9-11. This argument in the early days of the war was actually used to imply (somewhat fallaciously) not only that Iraq was complicit in the attacks, but that the war was somehow "worth it" as an act of revenge because a much greater loss had already been inflicted on the US. On December 27, 2006, this officially became no longer the case: the human cost of Iraq for the US was now greater than that suffered on 9-11.

The stats are 2974 U.S. dead as of December 25, 2006. Surpassing the 2973 total dead on 9/11. Wikipedia needs verifiable sources. Here are some media articles found with a Google News search:

Sorry, that was a typo... would you consider re-adding it (or some form thereof) but with the substitution of a '5' for the '7'? 70.16.247.100 07:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I added a quote from Newsday to the article. I can't put what you wrote in the article because it is an unsourced opinion, and wikipedia does not allow that in an article. Unless you can find something similar in a media article. That would be verifiable, sourced info. But it would have to be put in the article in the Wikipedia NPOV way of X says Y. --Timeshifter 08:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Site with running total of Iraqi deaths

I deleted this from the article:

There is a website [1] keeping a running total of total Iraqi deaths based on the same rate of deaths as the 2006 Lancet study. As of January 1, 2007 it says 734,087 Iraqis have died due to the war.

"Unknown News. Casualties in Afghanistan & Iraq".

They are making several mistakes in their running total. They are adding more deaths starting in October 2006 instead of July 2006 when the Lancet study period ended. Also, they are adding 30,000 more Iraqi military deaths. The 2006 Lancet study included all excess Iraqi deaths due to the war. Both civilian and military. --Timeshifter 22:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Couple of areas for cleanup

1. In the section Casualties caused by criminal and political violence, the quoted AP article starting "In Baghdad, a city of about 5.6 million, 4,279 people" is repeated at length, and verbatim, at the start of the section. It is also repeated verbatim in the Undercounting section. Just sounds repetitive and either the quote or (I'd suggest) the preceeding text drawn from it need to be trimmed or reworded to be less specific. Attriti0n 05:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the section called "Casualties caused by criminal and political violence." I have just shortened and clarified the section. The undercounting section only has one short paragraph. --Timeshifter 06:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nightline Controversy

2. Is the Nightline Controversy section really relevant to anything ? The only controversy would appear to be a news program wanted to not report news but instead read out names of the dead for an hour and got pulled. If this wasn't a predictable violation of assumed rules about political statements, would it still be a "controversy" if it was pulled for just being boring as hell and uninformative episode of a news program which was not delivering what it was supposed to ?

Whatever you think of this program being aired/pulled, it doesn't introduce any understanding to the topic of casualties in Iraq. In the only way it is relevant, that it was a reference to the number of serviceman killed, it wouldn't appear to be any different to PBS newshour's nightly photos of dead soldiers or cyrptome's list of the dead. Do these need to be added too, with no benefit to the article, or should this Nightline section be removed without any apparent loss?

I don't want to edit these things out myself because there's already a lot of debate here over what should and shouldn't be here. However these two look like they need fixing. Attriti0n 05:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I put your comments and mine in a separate section here on this talk page called "Nightline Controversy" to avoid confusion.
I find the Nightline Controversy to be legitimate, sourced, notable, historical info about casualties. Specifically about some of the political controversies that surround reporting on casualties. I find it to be highly relevant to the topic of this wikipedia page on Iraq War casualties. --Timeshifter 06:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
How is it relevant or useful info though ? There was no content in the intended broadcast other than the names of the dead. Well chuck in a link to the pentagon or cryptome death lists and you've got all that info which this program intended to provide but actually didn't.
As for reporting there have been more than a few media reports which deal solely with the casualty estimates, comparisons, analysis, informed comment etc. You cannot really argue that Nightline's intended reading of a list of names rates as anything meaningful or useful compared to what's left out of this.
I do believe that people planting little flags and crosses in lawns to illustrate the dead have also caused controversy. It's not like adding accounts of those is going to add any understanding to the topic.
If the idea is just to provide an illustation that the amout of dead in a war is a controversial topic that doesn't need illustrating to start with. If the idea is that the Iraq war is a controversial topic in the US then Wikipedia is going to need to buy some more servers just to host this entry if each example is worth 2 paragraphs. Attriti0n 10:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
We can start more wikipedia pages if needed. Look at Iraq War and the many wikipedia pages linked from it. There are several wikipedia pages linked from here too. Lancet, IBC, etc.. There are all kinds of controversial issues covered by wikipedia concerning the Iraq War. People's activities such as "planting little flags and crosses in lawns" is notable also if it is reported by the media. Especially if it is controversial. --Timeshifter 10:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


Are there missing numbers at the bottom? Like the iraqui death numbers near the references section. Thanks, Brusegadi 23:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not understand what you are asking about. Can you clarify? And should this be a new talk section? Is your question in reference to the Nightline talk section? --Timeshifter 08:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dead link

A graph of the monthly coalition casualties in Iraq in External links Art LaPella 17:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

thanks. I just removed that link. --Timeshifter 13:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] some cleanup required

  • Something's wrong with the references, e.g. click on [1] or [2] in the summary box at the top. i don't have time to look up what's wrong right now. Boud 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I just updated the IBC info and a couple IBC links. The Lancet links seem to be working fine still.--Timeshifter 13:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, i don't understand this sentence (which also gives a wrong link): "The Lancet study's excess mortality rate figure of 14.2 deaths/1000/year as of June 2006 corresponds to approximately 370,000 deaths in 2006.[5]" 370,000 deaths/year at a constant rate (14.2 deaths/1000/year) would imply that from end March 2003 to end March 2006, there'd be about 3*370,000 = 1,110,000 deaths up to March 2006, plus about 90,000 deaths from April/May/June 2006, making 1.2 million up to June 2006. That is not what the 2nd Lancet study claimed, so something is wrong here. Boud 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Someone else wrote that. I agree it is unclear. The rate of excess deaths increased year to year. It wasn't 14.2 deaths/1000/year throughout the war. I am going to remove that extrapolation. --Timeshifter 13:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • A third point: there is one extension of the Lancet study which gives the present (July? 2007) estimate as a little over a million, and there's a British survey (totally independent of Lancet) which gives about 1.2 million with a Poisson error of about 100,000 or so - the Poisson error is not published by them so by wikipedia principles we can't cite the uncertainty. i'll look these up later if nobody else gets them. Boud 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
    i found them now anyway:
    http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
    http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78
    Boud 12:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I will need to come back later to check out those pages when I have more time.--Timeshifter 13:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I added the Opinion Research Business (ORB) estimate of 1,220,580 violent deaths to the summary template. I found a Los Angeles Times article, and an article from The Observer.--Timeshifter 20:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] oh wow

i'm amazed this article isn't locked and that the internet can remain civil on an issue such as this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.5.225.172 (talk) 15:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It just goes to show that people on both sides of the issue are capable of rational discussion. Wikipedia rarely locks articles. Czolgolz 15:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect future date specified

The text below specifies a future date for the related news article.

"In November 2006 Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said that since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion between 100,000 and 150,000 people have been killed.[12][11][72][73] The Taipei Times reported: "Al-Shemari said on Thursday [Nov. 9, 2007] that" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.238.220 (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I changed the date to 2006.--Timeshifter 04:59, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wounded higher than official Pentagon tally?

According to this survey of brain injured vets, some 20,000 are not counted as combat casualties. "More than 150,000 troops "may" have suffered head injuries in combat" yet the official total is only 4,471! Wayne (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I added some info to the article about it.--Timeshifter (talk) 14:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Someone should add the latest survey numbers

Hi the NEJM just published a new paper that provides an estimate of violent deaths

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMsa0707782

It should probably be added to this article, and to the article discussing the Lancet survey. LetterRip (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Here it is:
Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraqi_Health_Ministry.2FWHO_survey
Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Overview --Timeshifter (talk) 01:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contractor Casualities {423 Killed/1 missing}

The Following website [2] lists 423 Contractors killed {listing is of All nationalities-List incomplete}. The following are listed as "Americans" in following catagories:

  • American-168
  • AMerican---1 {Egyptian Emigrant}
  • American---1 {Iraqi Emigrant}
  • American---1 {Sudanesse}
  • American?--1

-

  • In addition a KBR truck driver is missing as of 2004. See [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.129 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 28 April 2008
That first website is a geneological website, nothing to do with the war. Czolgolz (talk) 14:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Massive IP edits

I reverted a lot of IP edits...the author made some valid points, but didn't back up a single one with a reference. Czolgolz (talk) 04:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Friendly Fire

There should be a section on Casualties from Friendly fire. Ijanderson977 (talk) 20:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)