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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Reality Check -- This Is War |
| 2004-05-28 |
| The panic gripping Washington over the state of Iraq makes it clear we have been spoiled by the seemingly easy, apparently bloodless victories of the last decade. From the Persian Gulf War of 1991 to the Afghanistan war of 2001, we got used to winning largely through air power. There were casualties, of course, but few of them were on our side. In Kosovo, we managed to prevail without losing a single person. We forgot what real war looks like. Iraq is providing an unwelcome reminder of how messy and costly it can be. By comparison with the wars of the last decade, what’s happening in Iraq appears to be a terrible failure. Things look a little different if you compare it with earlier conflicts. Look at three key indicators: • Casualties. As of Wednesday, we’ve lost 800 service people in Iraq (666 of them from hostile fire), and more than 4,500 have been wounded (of whom 1,769 returned to duty within 72 hours). At least 200,000 soldiers and Marines have served in Iraq — including many who have since left — so that amounts to a total casualty rate of about 2.5%. If you add Air Force, Navy and logistics personnel supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom (at least 150,000), the casualty rate drops to 1.5%. How does that compare with previous U.S. wars? By my calculation, using data from Information Please and the Oxford Companion to American Military History, the losses we’ve suffered in Iraq are so far among the lowest of any of our major conflicts. Comparing the number of U.S. wounded and dead with the size of the force deployed, in Vietnam the casualty rate was 6.2%; in World War I and World War II, just above 6.5%. On D-day, June 6, 1944, more than three times as many servicemen were lost as died in Iraq in the past year. The Iraq war rate seems high only because our unstated benchmark is the 1991 Gulf War (total casualty rate: 0.14%). This is not meant to deprecate the sacrifices of our soldiers; for friends and family members, no statistics can assuage their grief. But, from a historical vantage point, what’s remarkable is how few casualties we’ve suffered, not how many. • Nation-building. No, we haven’t established a liberal democracy in Iraq. But it’s only been a year. We occupied West Germany for four years after 1945, Japan for seven years. We occupied the Philippines for almost half a century after the Spanish-American War. More recently, Bosnia is still occupied by the international community nine years after the end of hostilities, as is Kosovo five years later. It takes a long time to bring order out of chaos. The most successful examples of nation-building, such as the British in India, required hundreds of years. No one is suggesting that the United States should occupy Iraq nearly that long, of course, but it’s unrealistic to expect too much in only a year. The fact that an interim Iraqi government will be established June 30, and elections held by Jan. 30, is actually pretty speedy by historical norms. • Abuses: I make no excuses for the sadistic creeps at Abu Ghraib whose misconduct deserves the harshest possible punishment. But let’s be serious. For all the media’s coverage, this is no My Lai (1968) or No Gun Ri (1950) — both instances in which innocent civilians were gunned down by U.S. troops. Nor is this comparable to the abuses that occurred during the Philippine War (1899-1903), when Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith instructed his men to turn the island of Samar into "a howling wilderness" and kill "all persons 
who are capable of bearing arms." In Iraq, there is no evidence of the kind of systematic torture employed by the French in Algeria (1954-62) or the kind of "concentration camps" invented by the British in the Boer War (1899-1902). U.S. troops haven’t simply leveled whole towns, as the Russians did in Chechnya (1994-95) or the Syrians in Hama (1982). Even in World War II — the "good war" — there were numerous instances of Americans shooting enemy soldiers trying to surrender, to say nothing of the carpet-bombing of German and Japanese civilians. On the historical scale of abuses, the misconduct of a few soldiers in Iraq ranks pretty low. Most soldiers and Marines actually have exhibited great restraint in the face of an enemy that hides behind civilians and fires from mosques. I don’t mean to imply that everything is going great in Iraq. There are huge problems, especially the lack of security, and the Bush administration has badly bungled many aspects of the occupation. All I’m suggesting is that we keep a sense of perspective: Mistakes and setbacks occur in every war. At least in every war before the 1990s. Chronicling the Casualties |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 Just a brief reminder that those beautiful declining casualty rate figures are a direct result of technological advances. Be it the digital electronics responsible for GPS's contributions to C3 or materials science driving advances like Chobham armor or Kevlar vests, so many of our warriors' lives have been saved by investigative research. All of us should be very grateful to live in the American "brain-drain." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-28 9:15:04 PM |
| #5 Darn skippy DPA!!! |
| Posted by: Ol_Dirty_American 2004-05-28 4:45:03 PM |
| #4 Afghan elections? What elections? The media didn't tell me anything about elections. Must not be important, unlike Gwenyth Paltrows pregnancy. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-05-28 12:45:29 PM |
| #3 It's annoying to me that there are even morons on the right who are to blind to see the strategic victory we are achieving in Iraq because they can't get past a small tactical bump here and there. It's maddening. Btw, how come no one talks about afghanistan anymore... is it because it's on its way to being a runaway success and the media can't handle the fact of America's positive influence there? I wonder if they'll even bother to cover the upcoming Afghan elections... |
| Posted by: Damn_Proud_American 2004-05-28 12:37:12 PM |
| #2 Good point on Bosnia! Every time France, LLL, etc. pop-off about 'rapid handover' ask them when we are going to leave Bosnia. If we are out of Iraq in five years I would cal that a HUGE success. Anyone see Ann Coulter on on O’Rielly last night? Bill said there have been mistakes in Iraq and then she asked him to name them. All Bill had was the cliff notes for the LLL and nothing else (Troop Strength, WMD, etc.). No mention of the HUGE successes that have occurred in Iraq. Is the Left going to be surprised when they Iraqis have election next year? Mind you they may not be peaceful but neither are many of the democratic nations today (Ex: India, Philippines, Mexico). |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-05-28 12:24:52 PM |
| #1 but it’s unrealistic to expect too much in only a year. Unless of course you're a member of the Vast Left Wing MediaTM! |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-05-28 12:00:42 PM |