Article

2004-07-07 Iraq-Jordan

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Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-07-07 2:47:34 PM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I think a great deal of those are overlapping.

The Casualty page on lunaville does a really good job of analyzing the trends of casualties and by type.

http://icasualties.org/oif/Details.aspx

Apply the filter of US Marine at the bottom, and you get about 17 USMC casualties since 06/17

Most all of them in the Anbar Province.

Posted by Anonymous4021 2004-07-07 3:26:27 PM|| 2004-07-07 3:26:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Unless the offensive spreads to the bar at the Baghdad Intercontinental, we'll probably never know either.

Posted by tu3031 2004-07-07 3:29:27 PM|| 2004-07-07 3:29:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 What sort of bothers me is the number of clusters (three or four on one day.) To me that suggests either small patrols getting hit hard or larger units in, as Chuck puts it, a hell of a fight.

To put the number in perspective, my recollection is that the entire First Marine Division lost 30 Marines in the three-week campaign to take Baghdad.

Rest in Peace and thank you.

Posted by Matt 2004-07-07 3:29:48 PM|| 2004-07-07 3:29:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 I think this is border action.
JarHead?

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-07 3:49:46 PM|| 2004-07-07 3:49:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Fox, yesterday reported 7 killed in 48 hours from IED's

Posted by Sherry 2004-07-07 5:17:40 PM|| 2004-07-07 5:17:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 From what little I hear, the main problem is IEDs.

Posted by RWV 2004-07-07 5:19:18 PM|| 2004-07-07 5:19:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 happening at same time as repeated announced air strikes on Fallujah.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-07-07 5:20:13 PM|| 2004-07-07 5:20:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 I've heard the same IED cause of the casualty clusters as Sherry and RWV. I think if there was a lot if direct fighting we would hear about it.

Posted by remote man 2004-07-07 5:21:17 PM|| 2004-07-07 5:21:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Thanks for the link, a4021; what I really wish I had, though, was a decent reference, where I could obtain both US armed forces casualties over a specified time period (like May or June) and compare with Iraqi civilian casualties from insurgent terrorism during the same time period.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2004-07-07 5:33:24 PM|| [http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2004-07-07 5:33:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 This and another news item suddenly click. What if the Syrians and Iranians are both trying to destabilize their borders with Iraq at the same time?
Creating personnel-intensive border distractions to draw US and Iraqi personnel away from the cities, thus giving their operatives some breathing room. As long as nothing *too* provacative happens, they can get away with it. Plus, there is the bonus that any infiltrators who can get through both add to the in-country troublemakers and identify the weak spots along the border.

Posted by Anonymoose 2004-07-07 6:18:20 PM|| 2004-07-07 6:18:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Note that only one of the releases talks about an IED. I looked at all of the press releases and did not find any duplicates. The death on May 24th is classified as non-hostile. The two deaths on June 24 were in the Stan. So, 27 dead in the last 45 days from combat.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-07-07 7:21:20 PM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-07-07 7:21:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 What REALLY pisses me off (as a reservist and father of a son who is a NROTC-Marine Opton) is that they are still forcing our guys to drive those suicide wagon-HUMVEEs. Armored or not, those things are killing our men and women.

What they need to do as a stop-gap is to bring back the old Vietnam guntruck.
http://www.guntrucks.com/

You put steel plating around the driver cab, truck bed, and underneath. With the driver and gun crew elevated it would protect them from the normal IED.

Posted by anymouse 2004-07-07 8:55:36 PM|| [http://www.guntrucks.com/] 2004-07-07 8:55:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 If it's any consolation, the Marines generally don't drive Humvees. And only one of the 27 dead was from an IED. The rest are combat related.

I looked at the non-Marine list. About the same numbers, but almost all from IED's or rocket/morter attacks. Just a handful from combat.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-07-07 9:47:52 PM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-07-07 9:47:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Chuck, anecdotally it seems the assholes got better with practice with their mortars. I'd expect Allawi to loosen ROE to alllow suppression and pre-emptive strikes more. He doesn't want to die either

Posted by Frank G 2004-07-07 9:53:04 PM|| 2004-07-07 9:53:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Ship, imho, it's just the sad price of doing lots of patrols in injun country. Peace keeping in a low intensity environment is a dirty, ugly, unglamourous job that involves many casualties on the friendly side. Any info on how many dirt-bags we clipped in the process? Prolly in the area of 10 to 1. So maybe 270-300 douche-bags got vented in the process. Definitely no consolation to the families of the deceased but would be considered acceptable percentages to the commanders. War sucks anyway you slice it though this one was necessary imho.

Posted by Jarhead 2004-07-07 10:14:53 PM|| 2004-07-07 10:14:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Possibly Syrians, or Iranians, but more likely its the cannon fodder that the Iranians ans Syrians are funnelling into Iraq to try to destabilize it.

Posted by OldSpook 2004-07-07 10:50:19 PM|| 2004-07-07 10:50:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Allawi needs to do more to protect the US forces !

Posted by Anonymous5332 2004-07-07 11:23:16 PM|| 2004-07-07 11:23:16 PM|| Front Page Top

14:00 Guess Who
06:18 Israel-is-a-Nazi -state
08:27 Guess Who
08:18 Guess Who
04:30 GUESS WHO
03:30 GUESS WHO
15:41 Slinert Spoluger7331
02:40 Susanna Margaryan
07:16 ed
01:57 someone
00:56 Lucky
00:37 Lucky
00:25 thoan
00:23 Bomb-a-rama
00:22 Lucky
00:02 tipper
00:01 Atomic Conspiracy
23:54 Zenster
23:51 Steve White
23:42 Mark Espinola
23:40 Zenster
23:36 Steve White
23:29 tu3031
23:27 Zhang Fei