The numbers of dead for Iraqi civilians and security forces continue to trend lower. This is a mild surprise given the relaxation of travel restrictions in Baghdad, though it is also important to point out that violence in Baghdad did increase in some respects according to news reports, as with a several bombings during one day late in October.
The mainstream press easily beat me in reporting the very low fatality total for coalition troops. I could hazard the guess that Obama's proposals for withdrawing troops might help spur such reporting. With fatalities lower, one might reason, the time for phased withdrawal has arrived. Icasualties.org performed a late update on its figures, so my numbers differ slightly from mainstream news accounts derived from the same source.
I've stuck with the convention of showing 13 months at a time, which enables me to show a detailed graph that clearly shows recent trends. Long term trends are no less important, however. This month, given the impending change of power in Washington, I'm showing a long-term graph for coalition fatalities. Also note that I got around to graphing the "non-hostile" deaths as determined by the Pentagon and duly reported at Icasualties.org.
Non-hostile deaths have no readily apparent correlation to hostilities or hostile deaths. I found myself amazed at the number, along with fact that the media haven't bothered to crunch the numbers much at all.
According to my count, over 20 percent of reported deaths were not caused by enemy hostilities (if a U.S. soldier murdered another U.S. soldier, which has happened, it would be counted as a non-hostile fatality).
The fourth graph is remarkable, in retrospect. It represents an amazing turnaround in Iraq. The surge strategy was chosen in January and the troop levels increased gradually, not reaching their peak until the summer. The strategy was not implemented all at once. Rather, it was done region by region starting in Anbar province where the surge tactics were already in place. As Anbar stabilized, the strategy was employed in other locations including the Baghdad region.
The spike in May 2008, of course, represents the crackdown on the Sadrist militias. That move was not part of the surge strategy, strictly speaking, since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initiated the confrontation to both test Iraqi security forces and to politically marginalize the Sadrists. Al-Maliki accomplished his goal in spades, and inspired considerable unity in Iraq by confronting his own religious sect, the majority Shia. Sunni Muslims in Iraq took note.
May victory in Iraq endure whatever a President Obama decides to do.
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