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U.S. says monthly Iraq death toll heading lower
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| LatinLover |
37 troop deaths so far in October, lowest level in nearly 2 years
BAGHDAD - The monthly toll of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq is on track to being the lowest in nearly two years, with at least 37 troop deaths recorded as of Tuesday, but the military cautioned it's too early to declare a long-term trend.
Iraqi civilians, meanwhile, faced more attacks on Tuesday.
At least four mortar rounds slammed into a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing a woman and wounding five other civilians, police said.
In Baghdad, gunmen in a speeding car tossed a hand grenade into a crowd of shoppers in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five, according to an officer in the capital. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.
At least 37 American service members have died so far in October, nearly a third from non-combat causes.
Three of those deaths were reported Tuesday, but 37 is still the lowest number since 32 troops died in March 2006 and the second-lowest since 20 troop deaths in February 2004, according to an Associated Press count based on military figures.
That would be the second consecutive drop in monthly figures, after 65 Americans died in September and 84 in August.
In all, at least 3,840 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to the AP count.
Maj. Winfield Danielson, a military spokesman in Baghdad, pointed to a number of likely reasons for the decline, including a U.S. security push that has driven militants out of former safe havens and a change in strategy that has placed troops closer to the population. That, in turn, has caused a rise in the number of tips from residents about roadside bombs and other dangers.
He also singled out the cease-fire call by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who in August ordered his fighters to cease attacks against U.S.-led forces and other Iraqis for up to six months. Danielson said Iraqi forces also were increasingly taking charge of security operations.
Too early to tell
He welcomed the lower numbers but stressed it was too early to say it was a downward trend.
"Have we turned a corner? It might be a little too early to say that," he said. "It's certainly encouraging."
Ten of the American casualties, or nearly one-third, were listed as non-combat so far this month, compared with 19 of the 65 American troop deaths in September.
The U.S. military usually doesn't provide details about the causes of non-combat deaths in its releases, and Danielson said they could comprise anything ranging from vehicle accidents to suicides.
He said he could not immediately discuss whether the numbers of such deaths were unusual, although he calculated that about 82 percent of the overall casualties since the war started through Oct. 19 were from hostile fire or bombings.
"Either way it's a tragedy. We want to prevent both," he said.
Suicide rates?
In August, the U.S. Army expressed concern that repeated deployments and tours of duty that have been stretched to 15 months were putting increasing pressure on military families and creating record suicide rates among soldiers.
There were 99 Army suicides last year — nearly half of them soldiers who hadn't reached their 25th birthdays, about a third of them serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The 2006 total — the highest rate in 26 years of record-keeping and the largest raw figure in 15 years — came despite Army efforts to set up new programs and strengthen old ones for providing mental health care to a force stretched by the longer-than-expected conflict in Iraq and the global counterterrorism war entering its sixth year.
The current pace of civilian deaths also would put October at less than 900. The figure last month was 1,023 and for August, 1,956, according to figures compiled by the AP from hospital, police and military officials, as well as accounts from reporters and photographers. Insurgent deaths are not included. Other counts differ and some have given higher civilian death tolls.
Suspected Sunni and Shiite extremists appear to have stepped up attacks in recent weeks, however.
A suicide bomber rode his bicycle into a crowd of police recruits in Baqouba, killing at least 29 people in a province that has become a battleground among U.S. forces, al-Qaida militants and Shiite radicals.
Tribal leaders rescued
A group of Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders, meanwhile, were rescued on Monday, one day after they were kidnapped in the capital after meeting with the government to discuss how to coordinate efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq. A Sunni sheik who was among those abducted was killed.
Clashes also erupted for more than four hours Monday as American forces battled Shiite militia fighters near al-Sadr office in the predominantly Shiite northwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah. Before the clashes, witnesses described militia fighters wielding weapons in the streets, which were blocked to outside access.
A U.S. brigadier general was wounded in a roadside bombing Monday in northern Baghdad, the military reported, but it could not be determined if that was connected to the fighting.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko, commanding general of the Gulf Region Division, was the highest-ranking American officer to be hurt since the conflict began in March 2003. Dorko was in stable condition and was evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany; his injuries were not life-threatening.
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| LatinLover |
| I want to see now what excuse the far left is going to come up with. Because after all good news cant never come out of iraq :rolleyes: |
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| Spacey Orange |
| now if the just try harder, i know more can get killed next month. |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
I want to see now what excuse the far left is going to come up with. Because after all good news cant never come out of iraq :rolleyes: |
There are no excuses. As a matter of a fact, you're wrong with the logic that you're using. Why? I would like to share something that I learned in my Statistics class couple days ago.
To summarize, you are using a very dubious method to explain your point because you make a very questionable assumption that the current decrease of deaths in Iraq will go on and on in nice patterns and predictions (just like they predicted a bunch of other things about Iraq some time ago) ... its called extrapolation. Read about it.
Same thing people said about the prices of oil in 1998, that it will continue to be low, and drew all kinds of fancy predictions, lines and assumptions that were incorrect because there are many factors that can affect the price of oil at any moment, just like your Iraq.
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| LatinLover |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
There are no excuses. As a matter of a fact, you're wrong with the logic that you're using. Why? I would like to share something that I learned in my Statistics class couple days ago.
To summarize, you are using a very dubious method to explain your point because you make a very questionable assumption that the current decrease of deaths in Iraq will go on and on in nice patterns and predictions (just like they predicted a bunch of other things about Iraq some time ago) ... its called extrapolation. Read about it.
Same thing people said about the prices of oil in 1998, that it will continue to be low, and drew all kinds of fancy predictions, lines and assumptions that were incorrect because there are many factors that can affect the price of oil at any moment, just like your Iraq.
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You are telling this to me? :haha: Dude I have giving lectures and classes on statistics :rolleyes: I dont want to spend time with students like you that think they know more than their teachers, like me for example.
This is what is so incredible you always have anti americans and the far left trying to discredit everything that our military puts out. Unbelievable! We can win the war and the far left will come out crying and screaming that we didnt. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
You are telling this to me? :haha: Dude I have giving lectures and classes on statistics :rolleyes: I dont want to spend time with students like you that think they know more than their teachers, like me for example. |
How was he to know that you supposedly are a teacher of statistics? And how did you not know the concept of extrapolation if you are indeed a teacher of statistics? I would hazard a guess that by "teacher" you really mean "tutor."
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We can win the war and the far left will come out crying and screaming that we didnt. |
Just curious, what would said "win" look like? Maybe we just all have different definitions of victory. Your victory is the continued creation of enemies to pursue in the Middle East. My victory is the capture and punishment of Osama bin Laden. |
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| Krypton |
Psychological Operations (PSYOP, PSYOPS) are techniques used by military and police forces to influence a target audience's emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and behavior. Target audiences can be governments, organizations, groups, and individuals, and are used in order to induce confessions, or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator's objectives. These are sometimes combined with black operations or false flag tactics.
This concept has been used by military institutions throughout history, but it is only since the twentieth century that it has been accorded the organizational and professional status it enjoys now.
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I bet you Latin's one of these guys:stongue: :stongue: |
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| eROs.au |
| Wasn't it Ramadan? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
I want to see now what excuse the far left is going to come up with. Because after all good news cant never come out of iraq :rolleyes: |
Any news in reductions in deaths are good, provided that you examine the larger context of all factors that are in play. For example, Joe Christoff of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office
had this to say:
| quote: | I think that’s [ethnic cleansing] an important consideration in even assessing the overall security situation in Iraq. You know, we look at the attack data going down, but it’s not taking into consideration that there might be fewer attacks because you have ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, particularly in the Baghdad area.
It’s produced 2.2. million refugees that have left, it’s produced two million internally displaced persons within the country as well.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/30/sigir-report-oct07/
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Which as that link points out, his testimony runs parallel to ret. Gen. James Jones who also observed this "progress" in a Shi’a-led ethnic cleansing campaign:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/06/sunni-shia-baghdad/
So help me out here, Latin. You think ethnic cleansing by Shia-led militias killing Sunnis is appropriate and worthwhile to have in the long-run (i.e. long after we're gone)? Funny how I can't seem to find that thought anywhere in Bush or Cheney's grand scheme of a "peaceful" democracy in Iraq, can you? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
You are telling this to me? :haha: Dude I have giving lectures and classes on statistics :rolleyes: |
They let a 19-year old kid where English is a second language teach a statistics class? Well how about that? I'm wondering if you could enlighten us as to where you taught, as well as perhaps some of the faculty members on your staff?
| quote: | | This is what is so incredible you always have anti americans and the far left trying to discredit everything that our military puts out. Unbelievable! We can win the war and the far left will come out crying and screaming that we didnt. |
The military has been infiltrated with this Administration's political operatives. A couple of examples includes Bush/Cheney '04 media strategist Steve Schmidt, a former top aide to Dick Cheney for communications strategy is now pulling the PR campaign for the military. And Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, who just so happens to be a former WH aide:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...1901169_pf.html
And feeding supposedly secret documents to Matt Drudge:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ar...7_10/012344.php
So yes, when there's obvious politicization from our military heads via Administrative operatives, it's not hard to understand the obvious criticism towards such behavior. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
The military has been infiltrated with this Administration's political operatives. A couple of examples includes Bush/Cheney '04 media strategist Steve Schmidt, a former top aide to Dick Cheney for communications strategy is now pulling the PR campaign for the military. And Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, who just so happens to be a former WH aide:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...1901169_pf.html
And feeding supposedly secret documents to Matt Drudge:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ar...7_10/012344.php
So yes, when there's obvious politicization from our military heads via Administrative operatives, it's not hard to understand the obvious criticism towards such behavior. |
whats your point?
the Whitehouse, the civilian masters of the military, have to sell their side. whoopty frikken doo. it's called a command structure. during a time of an unpopular war. they gotta sell it. this is not Soviet Union.
Gen. Bergner is a glorified PAO. there's really not much to it. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
whats your point?
the Whitehouse, the civilian masters of the military, have to sell their side. whoopty frikken doo. it's called a command structure. during a time of an unpopular war. they gotta sell it. this is not Soviet Union.
Gen. Bergner is a glorified PAO. there's really not much to it. |
What do you mean what's my point? Installing political operatives in our military? You ing kidding me? The war shouldn't have propaganda figures trying to tell us how ing great it is, Q. The war shouldn't have to be "sold" by people within the military who just so happen to be political hacks from the Bush/Cheney campaign and the like.
The war should be selling itself from a nonpartisan perspective of the people fighting it.
What a terrible hand wave of a defense. |
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