U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq - 578 U.S. service members have died

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040322/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_deaths&cid=540&ncid=1480

As of Monday, March 22, 2004, 578 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq (news - web sites) a year ago, according to the Department of Defense (news - web sites). Of those, 390 died as a result of hostile action and 188 died of non-hostile causes, the department said. snip

Since May 1, when President Bush (news - web sites) declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 440 U.S. soldiers have died — 275 as a result of hostile action and 165 of non-hostile causes, according to the military.

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[okieinpain]

1. something is not right about this number. I thought the death

count was a lot higher, but they were only counting the 500 as in the line of duty or something like that.

[alcuno]

2. lunaville has the number at 583.

I believe it's correct as they have been documenting each death.

[jobycom]

3. Those are the number of people killed very dead on the battlefield

If a soldier is killed beyond any doubt by an enemy attack, he's dead on the field, and he's one of those numbers. If he is killed pretty badly, but the medic on the scene decides to send him to a doctor to see if he can be revived, he's not dead. If he dies of his wounds, or if he arrives at the doctor's already dead, he's not listed in that number.

The number of soldiers killed in action, including those who later died of their wounds (and "later" can mean thirty seconds later), is over a thousand.

[Columbia]

5. Urban legend

Deaths that occur after medevac are still listed among that total.

[jobycom]

6. Source on that? I read otherwise recently, and have friends in

the Reserves who swear it's true. One's a Lt Colonel (actually his wife).

On edit: Not saying you're wrong, I'd just like to know for sure if my info is wrong.

[Qanisqineq]

7. I wonder about this too

I talked to a Vietnam and Gulf War 1 vet this weekend who swears the total is over 1200.

[alcuno]

10. Source - lunaville.org

http://lunaville.org has been doing the very hard work of documenting casualties in Iraq. If you go to the list of fatalities, you will find the names of military personnel who later died in hospital in Englan, Germany, Kuwait, and the US. I believe their numbers because they have been documenting them since last Spring and I have never seen any factual evidence to the contrary.

This administration has enough lies for which have been documented; let's stick to those.

Here's another source with nearly identical information http://pigstye.net/iraq The difference in the numbers is that pigstye includes about 6 deaths that occured in and around Iraq before the actual invasion.

[JetCityLiberal]

17. I don't believe the numbers

All this administration does is lie so why not lie about how many people b*sh has killed.

I am not sure if this would be a way to prove the numbers are wrong, but if you know someone who died in Iraq then they should be on one of the lists available. I am trying to get names when I see them in the paper or any other source. I then try to see if that person is listed on one of the on line lists. If you can find a person who was killed that is not on a complete list then there is some proof.

This list shows 579 American deaths.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

Listed alphabetically

This next link is listed by date and shows 561 as of March 13th

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3359080/

It takes a while to look for each name. I have seen other lists on line and will post any other ones I see that might help.

Would love to prove in some definitive way that b*sh and the right wing media are hiding the true number of deaths just like they hide the true cost in dollars of this preemptive war.

JetCityLiberal

[NNN0LHI]

12. Ain't no urban legend. Figures don't lie, but liars figure

http://www.hackworth.com/26dec95.html

DEFENDING AMERICA
David H. Hackworth
December 26, 1995

NATO PRIORITIES NEED AN ADJUSTMENT

Last week, a mysterious voice on the phone whispered that the U.S. Army had taken its first casualty in Bosnia: "A soldier's arm was blown off by a land mine. The incident is being covered up."

Pentagon Col. David Holland says there was "no reported land mine incident," but a military policeman's "left arm was severed" while he was on a train headed for Hungary. Holland had no details on how the arm was sheared off but "is working the case."

After the incident, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, included in a televised interview about how brilliantly the NATO deployment to Bosnia was going, that there had been no "casualties" or "accidents."

Now, when a four-star general like politically correct Shali starts hyping performance and omitting casualties, my antenna goes way up.

I flashed back to all the flim flam during the Vietnam War, where I learned that figures don't lie, but liars figure. An example: The press was holding Gen. William Westmoreland's feet to the fire about the spiraling number of Americans killed each week. To bring down the weekly KIA rate and get the press off his case, the numbers were gently massaged.

If a wounded warrior was still sucking in air when he was put aboard a medevac chopper but died en route to the hospital, he fell under the new category of "died of wounds" and was not considered KIA. The KIA rate went down, and all was well until a draftee blew the whistle on the creative accounting.

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[DemoTex]

13. Excellent rebuttal by an impeccable source.

Don ... you the man! So is Hackworth. That took way more than Google to come up with. Good show, Don! I hope other DUers appreciate your response to a specious post, perhaps the best response I have ever seen on DU.

Mac

[alcuno]

15. Don, lunaville and others are simply counting the dead.

They are not distinguishing between KIA and others. There is the notion floating around, with absolutely no evidence, that the number of dead military personnel from Iraq is double what is being reported. I can't stand that combat/non-combat garbage, but I do not believe that the number of dead is not precisely what lunaville has reported.

[peacetalksforall]

4. So that's nearly 49 a month.

I'd like to know how many lost limbs,organs, minds, will to live, faith in our country.

[OneBlueSky]

8. WHAT ABOUT THE IRAQIS???

why is it that only AMERICAN deaths are important? . . . how many Iraqis have died or been maimed because of BushCo's illegal and immoral war? . . . every post reporting American deaths should also at least mention the Iraqi's who have been killed by our bombs, bullets, depleted uranium, and whatever other shit we've thrown at them in the past year . . .

[Just Me]

9. A post including TOTAL human deaths and injured would be,...

,...a more accurate reflection of the costs of this war.

[DemoTex]

11. Absolutely!

The 58,000 some-odd US deaths in Vietnam were eclipsed, numerically, by a factor of 30 or 40 (or more) in Asian deaths in Cambodia, Laos and the Vietnams. Who, other than me and a relatively few others who witnessed the arc-light bombings of Laos and Cambodia, and the anti-war people of this earth, shed a tear? Certainly not Nixon, Kissinger, or any of the up-and-coming Bu$h clan.

[Just Me]

14. My heart cries,...for all of them,...and they should ALL be counted.

It is the only decent, human thing to do,...IF we value all human life and potential.

[DemoTex]

18. "IF we value all human life and potential"

Goals long dead in the death-strewn wake of the USA juggernaut. Worldwide, we trump all other lives and all other potentials. Within this country wealth trumps the same. Locally, it is a sick, sick pecking order. I know. I'm a volunteer with the homeless.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

16. It's going up too fast.

:puke: Bush!

The death of these fine men and women is on Bush!!!

Bush is responsible for their deaths.

[FloridaPat]

19. NYT said there were 10,000-14,000 wounded. The DOD

was bragging about how good their doctors are because they are only loosing 6% of the wounded - the best of any war so far. I don't think the soldiers dying outside of Iraq in the hospitals are counted. I have not heard of one death of a soldiers dying from their wounds in a hospital. Then there have been two suicides after they came back to the States.

These creeps are going so far as to deny Purple Hearts so people can't count the wounded.