None. Remember, there are no terrorists in Iraq. They are only ‘insurgents.’ /s
How many? ... not enough.
Regards
I want to know “by jingo”.
I thought it was policy not to perform body counts following Vietnam.
A memoire (Highway to Hell by John Geddes)by a former member of the SAS working as a private military contractor in Iraq states that the official US estimate as at December 2005 at 53,470 against 2389 coalition troops. 30,000 civilians killed by both sides.
While I won’t concede that the US is low-balling these numbers, these are clearly “confirmed” kills and as such merely a lower bound. I gather that these statistics also omit deaths inflicted during the 2003 invasion. Like you, I believe the number is far higher than the official count but have no direct evidence (lots of indirect evidence, though). I’ve raised this issue here on FR previously, and there is a fellow poster who agrees and actually does have much evidence. (Can you search?) On some level, we know that the entire WOT figure must be much, much higher ... if we add kills in Afghanistan, as well as terrorist-on-terrorist deaths, Somalia, Israeli efforts in Lebanon, etc. If we go even further and include many of the revenge killings, well, who knows what the figure is? In one manner or another, could half a million bad guys have been exterminated since 2001? I don’t find that number implausible, though it must almost surely be an upper bound.
I often wonder what our President is thinking as he devises his strategies for the WOT. One hypothesis that I cannot reject is that he is counting up these bodies and believes that the terrorists can not sustain this level of damage indefinitely. I think his biggest mistake may have been that he grossly underestimated the terror masters’ capacity for sending their young off to die in this war. Having said that, I think Iran is egregiously overextended — nearly bankrupt, facing growing internal dissent that is nearing critical mass, etc. I think, as well, that the surge is working militarily ... I still have faith. And I believe, again without any evidence, that when the end comes for these terrorists as an effective force, it will be sudden and abrupt. We will not know how bankrupt they are (financially or militarily) until they are completely out of ammunition, so to speak.
IMO, the danger is that we pull out, not realizing that we are mere months if not weeks from overwhelming victory.
HERE IS AN ESTIMATION
As for February 2007 : 130’000 dead - 288’000 wounded.
As for now (estimation)
200’000 jihadists and Baathists killed (operationnal invasion March-April ‘03 included)
About 500’000 wounded.
Professeur Switzkart notes : “we are killing an entire generation of jihadists. Iranians have trouble to find new recruits and are calling for women to join the fight. It is likely that the next generation of this part of the Middle East will be held my women, which could be a real boost for reforms in Islam, as it was then in the post-WWI era in Europe.