U.S. Casualties Plummet in Iraq

NewsMax.com ^ | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

U.S. casualties in Iraq have sunk to their lowest level since the war began, with the fatality rate for G.I.'s on the front lines dropping to less than half the monthly average since the war began.

November 2003 was by far the bloodiest month for U.S. forces, with two helicopter crashes boosting the death rate to 82. By February 2004, however, the number of U.S. troop deaths had dropped to less than a quarter of that number, with 20 Americans killed.

Casualty rates compiled by the website lunaville.org, which is now considered by journalists, military personnel and their families to be the most accurate and comprehensive source for Iraq casualty totals, have shown a dramatic decline since January 2004, when 47 G.Is were killed.

In a development largely overlooked by the press, the February monthly death total of 20 was less than half January's number. And figures for the first nine days of March track almost exactly with the February rate, with five U.S. dead so far.

Since the war's inception in March 2003 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has averaged 46 per month, with individual monthly totals as follows:

Mar. 2003 - 65
Apr. 2003 - 73
May 2003 - 37
June 2003 - 30
July 2003 - 47
Aug. 2003 - 35
Sept. 2003 - 31
Oct. 2003 - 42
Nov. 2003 - 82
Dec. 2003 - 40
Jan. 2004 - 47
Feb. 2004 - 20
Mar. 2004 - 5[Though Mar. 9]

Figures for U.S. wounded show a similar decline - from October's high of 422 to a February total of 147.

For updates see: http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

[Texasforever]

Yeah but until Tom, Dan and Peter say it no one will believe it. How much airtime did the signing of the new constitution get?

[Mike Darancette]

Leave it alone NEWSMAX.

[goldstategop]

We're getting better at proactively engaging and rooting out the enemy and the enemy's inability to severely attrit our forces has caused him to turn on his own people. That usually is a sign of death for any sustained guerilla campaign that needs the "sea of the people" in order to move about and sustain itself over the long run.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

 

 

[boxerblues]

As I posted on another thread, the low causalities rate could have something to due with the troop rotation, fresh troops, new tactics.

[lentulusgracchus]

Gee, I was just thinking, I must have missed this on ABC News. D'ya think?

By November, Kerry's going to look so irrelevant it'll be a joke. And the Dims will be thanking heaven people will have forgotten about Howard Who.

[Happy2BMe]

Iraqi Coalition Casualty Report

[Happy2BMe]

Military Fatalities: By Month:

Period	US	UK	Other*	Total	Avg	Days
3-2004	5	0	0	5	0.5	10
2-2004	20	1	2	23	0.79	29
1-2004	47	5	0	52	1.68	31
12-2003	40	0	8	48	1.55	31
11-2003	82	1	27	110	3.67	30
10-2003	42	1	2	45	1.45	31
9-2003	31	1	1	33	1.1	30
8-2003	35	6	2	43	1.39	31
7-2003	47	1	0	48	1.55	31
6-2003	30	6	0	36	1.2	30
5-2003	37	4	0	41	1.32	31
4-2003	73	6	0	79	2.63	30
3-2003	65	27	0	92	9.2	10
Total	554	59	42	655	1.85	355

[Taxman]

We sure as Hell will not see this headline in the "Lamestream press!"

"If it bleeds, it leads."

When the bleeding stops, the press coverage stops. Can any FReeper imagine that the "Lamestream press" would ever cover the positive stories out of Afghanistan or Iraq?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Lamestream only covers negatives, and when there are no negatives, there is no story!

I sure miss reading the daily Washington Times -- the weekly is good, but I need a daily WT fix! WT online and FRee Republic almost make up for my Real News vacuum.

[IGOTMINE]

Bush is to blame for our plummeting casualty rate!

err, wait a minute. This is sorta good news. I think it is the prospect of a Kerry presidency that has our enemies resorting less to violence and more toward peaceful negotiation. Nothing like the prospect of dealing with an appeaser to cause someone to adopt a "wait'em out" strategy.

[xzins]

I agree to an extent.

The word needs to get out, but there's no reason for triumphalism in the press. They read our press, and that will be incentive to launch missions just to counteract the good press.

[Taxman]

Personally, I think the bad guys are getting hit hard by US forces, their Allies and the Iraqi good guys, and as a result have been forced deep into the "hurt locker."

One can only hope this trend continues.

BTW, has anyone noticed that there have been few, if any, terrorist bombs in the Kurdish controlled region of Iraq? [Or, have I just been asleep at the switch?]

The Saddamites seem to have gotten the message that it is dangerous to their health to be caught in the area under Kurdish control. Kurds, it would appear, take no prisoners and, as a result, have the situation in their region under control.

We are not likely to read much about that situation in the Lamestream press, either.

[hoosiermama]

Gee! You wouldn't happen to have the statistics on the number of people murdered in NYC(NY) or LA(CA) (or another high crime area) for the same time period would you?

[rageaholic]

Meanwhile Iraqi civilian casualties are still up as these losers look for soft targets. Terrorists show their true colors by killing their own people.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Kurds are doing well!

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[Happy2BMe]

>> N.Y.C. murder rates compared to Iraqi U.S. casualties.

City's Murder Rate Poised Below 600"

NYC murder rate alone is higher than our combned casualty rate.

[kabar]

This is the big unreported story. There are good reasons not to make too much of it, particularly if the terrorists believe that they must kill more Americans to win the war in the press. No one wants to put a bigger target on our guys' backs.

On the other hand, the reduction of US casualties shows that our tactics are successful and that more and more Iraqis are assuming security responsibilities. It is good news.

[blackie]

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~