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July 17, 2005

Iraq may be getting better?

So awhile back I went through the Brooking’s Institute report looking for trends. At the time, we were conducting some operations, so it was hard to tell if the recent bumps were starts of a bad trend, or just because the troops had been more active.

I looked at it again today. Iraq may be getting dramatically better. I know that’s hard to believe, but 2 weeks into July, the number of US troop fatalities and Iraqi Police fatalities is much lower then you might expect.

The low for the month over the last year was 40 deaths. So far in July, 18 as of halfway through the month. If we double that, that’s 36 which is significantly under the previous minimum. But even more interesting, only 11 of those were from “hostile incidents”. Compare that to 82 deaths in June, 70 of which were from hostile attacks. That means if we continue the typical rates, the number of deaths will be something like 33 deaths, which would be the 4th lowest month overall.

Now wounding is 293 so far, which if we double it would be 586. That wouldn’t be especially low, but would be consistent with the slow down since the elections.

Iraqi military and police killed so far in July is 113, double that to 226 and we still have a much smaller number then June’s 296.

Meanwhile, the bombings on civilians might be slowing, only 11 in the first half of July, which led to 146 deaths. That doesn’t include the terrible bombings of the last few ways, but dare we hope? There were 30 bombings last month, causing 548 deaths.

Lets hope the trends of early July continue.

Posted by the at July 17, 2005 8:12 PM

Comments

You might like Chrenkoffs Good News from Iraq (Part 31).

His previous posts in the series are at the bottom of his sidebar.

—Jason

Posted by: Jason Coleman at July 18, 2005 9:11 AM

Yeah, I love Chrenkoff.

Posted by: Opinionated Bastard [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 19, 2005 8:16 PM

No chance. This will not get better til the US gets out. Suicide bombs daily does not lead to stable govt. This is just like the diem govt in Vietnam where the USA was fighting a war for freedom against the people it was supposedly freeing.

ernie

Posted by: ernie at July 20, 2005 10:19 AM

ernie,

About 100,000 or so of the people we were freeing were killed by the communists after the communists had won the war. Another 500,000 took to the sea. And of course the sea faring folk were the most adventurous or afraid of those we were freeing.

So now those left in Vietnam have a thriving economy, a vibrant multi party democracy, and more freedom of speech than Americans. Wanna buy a bridge?

Posted by: M. Simon@xta.com at August 4, 2005 9:57 PM

Ernie - - It will get much worse if we pull out! What will happen is that the MSM/DNC will cover it like they have been covering the Air America theft the last two weeks. If you are out of the loop, the MSM/DNC has not covered the theft of almoost $1,000,000 of taxpayers’s money by Air America. So to the uniformed it will seem to get better when if fact it will be worse, but hidden.

Posted by: Rod Stanton at August 5, 2005 4:47 AM