As of today the U. S. military casualties for the month of October stand at 34—the lowest number in two 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 34 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 34 American service members have died so far in October, nearly a third from non-combat causes.
It is 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
While we rejoice at the reduction in the number of deaths, as the unnamed military experts cited in the article noted, it’s still too early to pronounce a longterm trend. Here’s the part of this article that caught my eye:
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.
That’s almost precisely the number of casualties that would be expected in a force of the size we have in Iraq under any circumstances wherever they were stationed. The number of casualties in the military is roughly 75 per 100,000 per year stateside. A force of 150,000 then could expect something like 112 casualties per year—just under 10 per month.
