Coalition records its 1,000th death in Iraq

[Guaranteed]

Just heard on CNN...

Here's a link:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/09/iraq.main/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. soldier has died of wounds he suffered in fighting in Baghdad late Thursday, a U.S. military spokesman said.

The death brings coalition deaths -- both hostile and non-hostile -- since the start of the war to 1,000. U.S. military deaths now total 880, with 657 of them by hostile fire.

The spokesman said five insurgents were detained in the fighting.

On Thursday, a mortar attack killed five U.S. troops and an Iraqi National Guard member in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, according to a U.S. military spokesman in Tikrit.

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That's one of those "not so good" milestones.

[Oggy]

1. What is the ratio of "coalition deaths" to Iraqi deaths

I was just thinking at the very minimum it must be something like 15:1 . Which would mean 15000 Iraqi deaths. Which is not good to put it mildly.

[daleo]

3. Recently, the military said they killed 4000 or so "insurgents"

In the month of April. During that month 135 U.S. (140 all coalition) soldiers were killed. So that would put the ratio at about 30 to 1. Of course the estimate by the military is probably wildly inflated (based on the Viet Nam body count experience, and the fact most Iraqi fighter bodies seem to be spirited away shortly after an engagement), and lots of these "insurgents" are probably just bystanders. I am guessing that the ratio of U.S. soldiers to actual Iraqi fighters is probably not all that high. But, who really knows?

[Zynx]

4. If we had killed 4,000 in April we would have broken their backs.

The military is vastly inflating those figures.

[primavera]

5. It's pretty gruesome

Among the Iraqi military killed defending Iraq during the initial stages of the invasion, there were somewhere between 4,895 and 6,300 killed, with 5,103 wounded. According to www.iraqbodycount.net, between 11,164 and 13,118 civilians have been killed. The 4,000 insurgents killed are not included in either of those figures, so figure you can add those in as well, and, according to the source just quoted, that was just a month's worth of killings. So you have to figure at least 20,000 dead and another 10,000 or so wounded, plus of course the 10-15,000 languishing in US concentration camps, you can safely estimate that, for every one of the 2,000 killed on 9/11, there are at least twenty five innocents who had nothing to do with that horrible crime who have been made to suffer as a consequence. My heart goes out to them; I sure wouldn't want my karma burdened with that much innocent blood.

[cthrumatrix]

2. this is a sad day for a "war of choice" by a puppet doing the bidding of

his masters.