October 6, 2004
WHEN HALF ISN'T 50%:
Twin Pique (Spencer Ackerman, 10.06.04, New Republic)
On two key issues--the burden shouldered by Iraqi security forces and the vice president's own record of suggesting Saddam Hussein's complicity in September 11--Cheney was up to his usual dishonest tricks.Rolling out what has become a standard attack from the Democratic ticket, Edwards illustrated the price of the administration's unilateralism by pointing out that U.S. troops have accounted for "ninety percent" of coalition casualties during the occupation of Iraq. Cheney cried foul. "The ninety percent figure is just dead wrong," he said. "When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost fifty percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq."
Give Cheney points for originality. Edwards indeed wasn't including Iraqi security force casualties. According to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, from May 2003 (when the President told the USS Abraham Lincoln that in the "battle of Iraq," the coalition had "prevailed") until this past Monday, the United States has suffered 917 fatalities, while the rest of the coalition has suffered 105 deaths. (The vast plurality of those 105 deaths are 35 from the United Kingdom.) Under that tally, Edwards is right that the United States is bearing roughly 90 percent of the burden. But since January 1 of this year, approximately 750 Iraqi police officers have been killed. So adding the Iraqi and non-U.S. coalition casualties together, the morbid number reaches 855 deaths, or close to the number of fallen American troops. That's presumably how Cheney is getting his "almost fifty percent" figure.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 6, 2004 4:06 PM
So Ackerman's point is what, that counting the Iraqi dead as real dead people is unfair and dishonest?
Posted by: John Thacker at October 6, 2004 4:26 PMThe Dems are mad because they thought they had a winner with the 90% meme. I think Cheney effectively blew this argument away by pointing out that the Iraqis are part of the coalition in that they are fighting to clean up their own country. For the Dems to argue that Iraqis don't count seems a losing argument.
Posted by: AWW at October 6, 2004 4:33 PMThis would be amusing, if the subject matter was a bit lighter. Ackerman is just saying exactly what Cheney said, but doing it with a sneer.
Posted by: Timothy at October 6, 2004 4:33 PMDo the 'fatalities' include non-combat deaths for US troops? The natural death rate for 120k twenty-and-thirty-something males must be, what, a few dozen a month to begin with?
Posted by: mike earl at October 6, 2004 5:32 PMThe background mortality rate for the armed forces is something around 60 deaths per 100,000 service members per year. There have been 200,000 service members in OIF for 18 months (all numbers are approximate).
Posted by: David Cohen at October 6, 2004 5:55 PMMike, the answer is yes, they do include non combat deaths. According to this article, combat deaths were at 756 when total deaths passed 1,000, and so are probably somwhere aroung 800 now.
Of course, a lot of those noncombat deaths are still action-related, helicopter crashes, etc., so its hard to say that only combat deaths count, and harder still to tease out exactly how many deaths actually do "count."
Typically, casualties are so high that that sort of information is just background noise that has no affect on the overall statistic. But casualties have been so fantastically low in this war that it is a substantial number, and ignoring it is lazy and/or dishonest on the part of the media.
Posted by: Timothy at October 6, 2004 6:16 PMWe can't count the wogs as part of the casualties, can we? After all, we all know they aren't really "people", in the same sense as Israeli Jews and Evangelical Christians aren't people either.
I've notice a new Left tactic, too— They make an assertion that "Cheney was up to his usual dishonest tricks" or that "the war in Iraq has been mismanaged" without ever offering evidence. They make these assertions as if they are self-evident, and then proceed to base their entire argument on them.
The number I'd like to see is the number of non-combatant Iraqi deaths for comparison purposes.
Raoul:
Excellent point. Edwards said (according to what I have read) the word 'plan' 23 times last night. Did he ever explain any plan? Did he ever outline any plan? Did he ever even talk about implementing a plan? No.
He has no plan.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 6, 2004 9:18 PM