Posted on 08/02/2007 8:13:57 AM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the country's brutal civil conflict rose by more than a third in July despite a five-month-old surge in US troop levels, government figures showed Wednesday.
At least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, 33 percent more than in the previous month, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi health, defence and interior ministries and made available to AFP.
Casualties continued to mount as a massive car bomb tore through a major Baghdad intersection -- the fifth such blast to strike the city centre in the past week -- killing at least 10 people.
Meanwhile, two critical reports emerged pointing to weaknesses in American efforts to rebuild and stabilise Iraq, which has been in the grip of several overlapping civil conflicts for more than four years.
July's civilian toll was slightly higher than the number for February, when the United States began a "surge" in troops aimed at flooding Baghdad with reinforcements to stem Iraq's sectarian bloodletting.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It got sucked back into the DU Vortex from whence it came.
Hey, did you see where FREERIDERS is being adopted into the official FReeper lexicon?
Woo Hoo! That'll be something to tell the grandkids... ;)
Not only are the number of US casualties trending downward, but they are lower on a per capita basis given the larger US troop presence and also on a per-mission basis. We’re killing more bad guys, getting more help from the Iraqis themselves and the pacified areas of the country have expanded. That sounds a lot like “winning” to me.
LLS
I believe there has been some question about the veracity of these numbers. There are claims of death totals by ministries whose funding is determined by those numbers, but no independent verification of them.
Perhaps far more subtle is these numbers are “throughout Iraq” and the surge’s profound success has been found where it was focused — in Baghdad.
They are not. A regression line of the data beginning in March 03 through July 07 shows a slope of .7525 and an R^2 value of .1871. With a sample population of over 30, these values are significant. Another item that could be addressed are the number of July casualties, although (as correctly stated) they are the lowest in 7 months (in three cases by 1 and in one case by 2) they are significantly higher than in any other July: 07 = 80, 06 = 43, 05 = 54, 04 = 54. 03 = 48; approximately 1.5 times the next highest July.
The media do not care about any people’s suffering anywhere except insofar as it can be blamed on America. It’s not so much hypocrisy on their part as it is self-loathing. The media mob and the Democrats for whom they act as hit men are invested not only in American defeat, but in its disgrace and embarrassment, too.
I other words, this higher count might just reflect the defeat, by death and casualty, of the terrorists and those trying to destroy the Iraq government.
Define “civilian.”
I am sure that whoever wrote this story includes dead terrorists as “civilians” - a reason for cheering, not weeping as the headline implies.
Terrorists do not wear uniforms, yet they are combatants. One of the main problems in this war is that it is impossible to distinguish combatants from civilians.
The press is turning this problem into another fake statistic to use in their anti-war, anti-US troops jihad.
I am sure the terrorists’ PR people are very happy.
You are correct. However, the upward trend is even more pronounced if only one year’s data is used.
Then I suggest youre misreading the population that lives between the 2 coasts (this is not 2004 anymore) The average guy is SICK to death with whats going on over there; the same rancid headline day after endless day. He (she) is going to vote for change, even if its the demonic Hitlery, and they feel instant buyer's remorse... BTW, thats no matter what the polls tell you in October '08, because they will be WRONG.
No matter on whether President Bush and the Congress was right to authorize to use force in Iraq to remove Saddam from power, what happened was that we messed up the occupation.
In a way, we would had been better off if we left Iraq in May '03, and we simply kept our forces on alert in Kuwait.
The reason that US casualties is down between May of this year and today has little, if any, correlation with past history and everything to do with the military elements of the surge. A historical example will suffice: US military casualties were far higher in the European Theatre of Operations in 1944 than they were in 1943, and much higher than in 1942, trending upward beginning in June '44 and continuing upward through January/February of 1945. We must have been losing the war, right?
General Petarus do not have enough troops to get the job done. He needs at least 200,000 more troops if we want to completly pacify Iraq. Right now, all we are doing is making sure that the dam doesn't break but in the long term, it is not a feasible strategy.
I’m not a statistician either, but it is interesting to attempt to understand data. In answer to your question, July 07’s figure is below the regression line, but well within one standard deviation.
General Petarus do not have enough troops to get the job done. He needs at least 200,000 more troops if we want to completly pacify Iraq. Right now, all we are doing is making sure that the dam doesn't break but in the long term, it is not a feasible strategy.
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