It’s not even close to safe

August 28, 2006

The New York Times reported today that another seven American troops died in Iraq, just in the last two days. Their deaths coincided with 28 deaths in Diwaniya when the Iraqi army clashed for hours with members of a militia loyal to Moktada al-Sadr and an additional 13 people died in Baghdad when a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint just outside the Interior Ministry’s headquarters.

It’s against this backdrop that two Samuel Preston and Emily Buzzell argue that conditions in Iraq really aren’t all that life-threatening.

Between March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among American troops in Iraq. Seventy-nine percent were a result of action by hostile forces. Troops spent a total of 592,002 “person-years” in Iraq during this period. The ratio of deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000 person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in Iraq.

How does this rate compare with that in other groups? One meaningful comparison is to the civilian population of the United States. That rate was 8.42 per 1,000 in 2003, more than twice that for military personnel in Iraq.

The comparison is imperfect, of course, because a much higher fraction of the American population is elderly and subject to higher death rates from degenerative diseases. The death rate for U.S. men ages 18 to 39 in 2003 was 1.53 per 1,000 — 39 percent of that of troops in Iraq. But one can also find something equivalent to combat conditions on home soil. The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher than among troops in Iraq. Slightly more than half the Philadelphia deaths were homicides.

Not surprisingly, the right seems delighted with this analysis. Glenn Reynolds, among others, was exuberant, saying, “[I]t’s hard to look at these numbers and see the catastrophe that the ‘527 media’ are proclaiming.”

All of this is transparently ridiculous.

It’s apparently part of an ongoing trend in conservative talking points. Maybe Americans would be less opposed to the war if only they could be convinced that the violence and casualty rate isn’t as bad as they think it is. It’s this thinking, for example, that prompted Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to argue that the civilian violent death rate in Washington, D.C., is actually higher than it is in Iraq, and cited bogus data while making the case. Similarly, RedState compared Baghdad to Milwaukee, after a tragic spate of shootings.

Kieran Healy did a terrific job of tearing the whole argument to shreds at Crooked Timber, and this portion stood out.

This is why comparisons to death rates in civilian settings — even comparatively violent ones — are misguided. Anyone who thinks that someone walking around Philly is more likely to be violently attacked than a marine out on patrol in Baghdad is out of their mind. Moreover, troops on patrol are kitted out with protective gear, travel in well-organized groups, and have guns. And yet they still die in large numbers. Crude comparisons of death rates across very different settings mask big differentials in exposure to violent incidents, ignore fundamental differences in the structure of those incidents, and—in the case of military fatalities—ignore the huge improvements in field medicine that (according to data for 2004) allowed the ratio of wounded to killed soldiers in Iraq to be more than two and a half times what it was in Vietnam. Bear in mind, too, that all of what I’ve said so far ignores the elephant in the room, which is that the death rates in the article refer exclusively to U.S. forces on active duty in the whole of Iraq and not to regular Iraqi civilians. Contrary to what you may have heard, these people are not magically immune to the effects of car bombs, death squads, or suicide bombers. […]

[T]he acid test is quite straightforward. Would you — can you? — take a commercial flight to Baghdad tomorrow, get a taxi from the airport to the city, stay at a local hotel, see some sights and eat out at a decent restaurant without being in fear of your life? What about Philadelphia?

That’s easy enough to understand, isn’t it?

We should put out our own death rates (joke), but I would be curious to see if it’s safer in Iraq or in a cat 3 hurricane, maybe then someone might tell these idiots to STFU.

Plus what about casualties ? I doubt many people in Philly are missing limbs because of street violence. The argument is so crude that it’s sickening.

Better yet, let’s do a fricken reality show. Bagdad Survivor. None of this whoosy deserted island non-sense, but these fools to a real test.

  • I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here in Omaha it’s pretty common to see news reporters do their “on the spot” stories while wearing a Kevlar helmet and body armor.

    And we have milita groups armed to the teeth almost everywhere you go.

  • Not to mention the fact that soldiers are wearing body armor which mitigates injuries that would otherwise be fatal. And what of the wounded? Are they not counted at all?

  • Did the Department of Defense commission this? I have a hard time accepting that the Bush Administration’s Department of Defense is operating with “an exceptional degree of openness and transparency” on this or any other matter pertaining to the Iraq war.

    Plus what about casualties ? I doubt many people in Philly are missing limbs because of street violence. The argument is so crude that it’s sickening

    The authors apparently couldn’t get the same information regarding other causalities. So much for the transparency or openess. But they “assume” that statistically the risk of being wounded is the same as being killed in Iraq. Therefore, you are more likely to be seriously wounded by an IED in Philadelphia than you are in Iraq.

  • Bryrock — great point. It’s appalling that we don’t hear more about the wounded. I think the number is something like 30,000.

  • Remeber all the dumb people in you college stat classes? Yeh, Im sure you do. You probably didnt think about which of them were unethical at the time however, did you? Nope, probably not. Bet you’re thinking about it now.

  • 2Manchu – You’re kidding me right? Why are the news reporters in Omanha decked out in military gear? And I thought all the wingnuts were here in SW Missouri.

  • I’ll take this as evidence that we need to be spending our resources to make Philadelphia safer rather than whateverthehellitisweredoing in Iraq.

  • Yes, good point, Byrock. The thousands of wounded are simply invisible. Consider that in earlier wars, many would be dead due not only to no body armor, but to far more primitive medicine.

    The problem with comparing Iraq combat deaths to domestic fatalities is that we didn’t NEED to be in Iraq. So, that means 2300+ have died and ?thousands have been severely wounded for nothing. That’s a very tragic reality that most families prefer not to face.

  • FWIW, an “e-mail of the day” at Andrew Sullivan’s site (currently partially guest-blogged by David Wiegel) makes the claim that the death rate in Baghdad is way down and that the U.S. is basically determining the rules of conflict at this point. I don’t know how this assertion jibes with this and this, though. Eight deaths of U.S. soldiers in the last two days and groups of Iraqi soldiers flat-out refusing to go to Baghdad doesn’t seem to be dictating terms to me.

  • Hmmm. Let’s see from 1961 through 1973, approx 7,000,000 troops served in Vietnam. During that period there were approximately 58,000 KIA. So the average soldier had a 00.82 percent chance of getting killed while serving in Vietnam.

    In Iraq, assume we’ve cycled through approx 200,000 troops in the 4 years we’ve been there (correct me it I’m wrong — finding solid numbers seems to be a little difficult). Of that we’ve had 2700 KIA in Iraq. So there’s a 01.35 percent chance if you serve in Iraq that you’ll end up KIA.

    Just an off the cuff estimate. But it suggests that Iraq is 165 percent more lethal than Vietnam per soldier served.

    –Beo

  • An argument is only ridiculous in politics if it doesnt work. This is not a Sunday afternoon debating society where participants and spectators judge arguments based on their merits. The opponents are thugs masquerading as warriors, the audience has been indoctrinated for more than 26 years to only see one point of view, and the moderators(MSM) have been bought off

  • The fact that it’s actually safer in Iraq than DC would help explain why so many Republican Senators are now walking around Baghdad with their wives and families in tow.

    or not.

  • marcus,

    The only difference between SW Mizzu wingnuts and the Nebraska wingnuts is,….well, nothing, really. They’re two peas in a pod.

    Unfortunately, my sarcastic side once again got the best of me. Though I’m sure we have a few local reporters who would love to “dress up” like this was Sadr City.

  • I like the spin on some of these comments. 😉

    Why aren’t we spending more money on making the streets of American Cities safer than the streets of Bahgdad?

    But really, the authors of this paper are a bunch of twits. Their statistics don’t mask the fact that these soldiers wouldn’t be dying or being maimed if they weren’t in Iraq. Compare the life expectancy of a soldier in garrison with one in the field.

    Several months ago, George F. Will, doubtlessly prodded by his Republican’t contacts with the Bushites, said the Administration’s goal was to reduce the number of killed Americans in Iraq to three a day, then three a week, then three a month, at which point supposedly a majority of Americans would accept staying in Iraq until 2009. Well, that hasn’t happened, and you no longer hear this idea being bandied about.

    The Bushites don’t come up with new war strategies, they come up with new public relations strategies to sell the same failed war strategies. They are not succeding but they can’t admit it.

    In the end, Boy George II doesn’t want to lose another game of ‘I Win’. If he left Iraq, the Iranians and al Qaeda and the Baathist Insurgency would all claim ‘I Win’. This Boy George II can’t tolerate. Just look at how upset he got over Hezbollah claiming ‘I Win’ over the recent war in Lebanon. And in the end, we will find that Boy George II invaded Iraq not for WMD or for al Qaeda connections or for terrorist funding, but because Saddam Hussein claimed ‘I Win’ in November 1992 when GHWB lost the election to Bill Clinton. Saddam was still in power despite the Gulf War, and GHWB was out of power despite the Gulf War. You can bet that claim ate Boy George II’s liver for eight years.

  • This is so spurious. What kind of university would allow a guy like this to sport a title of ‘professor of demography’? If a student produced such drivel they’d be made to resit.

    For a start, no reference to raw data is provided, so it’s impossible to check his deductions against the calculations that might have produced them.

    Second, his figure of 592,002 “person-years” looks highly dubious. There’s never been more than 135,000 troops at any one time, and he’s looking at a period of three years, so there cannot possibly be more than 400,000 “person-years”.

    Third, the trick of comparing the death rate among a very atypical population occupying the healthiest age band with the whole population of the United States is so disingenuous it verges, as Kieran Healy suggest, on the criminal. To smugly, as an afterthought, point out that the comparison is ‘imperfect’ (or “dumber than a can of Cheez Wiz.” as Kieran says) is no excuse. I am really struggling for words here, it is so unprofessional.

    Similarly, their attempt to make the Iraq figures look not so terrible by scouring out a highly selective sample (African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia) in a highly anomalous situation (Philadelphia’s inner city in 2002) is just pathetic. Why didn’t he go the whole way and make his sample “African American men ages 20 to 34 who died in Philadelphia in 2002″ — then he’d have an indubitable 100% death rate.

    But wait, there’s worse. When he gives the figure ‘4.37 per 1,000 in 2002’ is he talking 1000 head of population sample (seems possible) or invoking his earlier ‘ “person-years” ‘? He doesn’t mention population size in either case — his most serious omission — so this could be another specially-tailored oversight.

    Who’s paying him?

  • “The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher than among troops in Iraq.”

    I’m sick and tired of seeing our Holy War Against Black People denigrated by far-left liberal sites like Glenn Reynolds.

    OF COURSE we haven’t been able to reach these success levels yet in Iraq!

    Our boys are killing and being killed with honor, but they cannot compete with AIDS, cheap handguns, crack and speed, and malnutrition/poverty.

    Even turning troop feeding over to Halliburton didn’t make up the stat gap. They served our troops wormy meat and untreated water from the Euphrates river — STRONG, COURAGEOUS ACTIONS! — but the troops failed to fall ill in sufficient numbers to meet Halliburton’s targets.

    Bushco successfully avoided guarding the 380 TONS of high-explosives as Al Qa-qa — but even with the massive increase in roadside bombs from that stock, there are just not enough troops inside of each UNARMORED (“softshell”) Humvees.

    But this liberal Glenn Reynolds doesn’t look at all the GOOD NEWS coming out of this effort in Iraq. Typical moonbat…doesn’t understand how hard it is to destroy American families. It’s Hard Work! And those africano-americans in St. Louis, or Philadelphia, whatever, are just too dug-in.

    Look at New New Orleans — far less africano-americans, so the next flood just won’t be as effective. We’re bringing their numbers down, while our troops in Iraq struggle to stand up to their fair share of the deathtoll.

    WE’RE MAKING PROGRESS, GLENN.

  • Wait, my houseboy has just told me that ‘denigrate’ doesn’t mean ‘to remove negroes.’

    “I’m sick and tired of seeing our Holy War Against Black People denigrated by far-left liberal sites like Glenn Reynolds.”

    Of COURSE we can’t denigrate Iraq at the same level, Glenn. IF you had any education, you would know that there are Islamofascists in Iraq — so you can’t denigrate them, you have to de-islamofascist them. A liberal egghead like you, Glenn Reynolds, should know such things.

    Orange is orange (if you say so), nigrate is nigrate, and islamofascist is islamofascist. Keep it straight, Glenn. Segregate your thoughts, or you will not understand our Holy Wars.

    But I do have one question: Is orange short for orangutan? I admit I’m not up on all the Freedom-Tunisian slang they use in Virginia.

  • It just shows that, as far as George W. Bush and his supporters and cronies are concerned, fatalities and casualties in Iraq and elsewhere are of no significant consequence. How pathetic they are that they make these tragedies seem of no consequence.

    Let’s just hope that our fellow Americans would show their distaste for this callous disregard for human life and its insensitivities by replacing the incumbent Republicans with caring, responsive, and responsible Democrats in the coming ’06 and ’08 elections. May true democracy be restored to our shores.

  • I love these ridiculous comparisons between death rates of armed military in Iraq and civilians in U.S. cities. The best comparison would be death rates in Iraq and death rates of the military in New Orleans after Katrina. If memory serves me correctly, exactly zero military personnel were killed in the lawless aftermath of Katrina.

  • While death statistics give the right some flexibility to twist the numbers, how about a few statistics that would show a more stark comparison:
    – rate of carbombings
    – rate of beheadings
    – rate of abductions
    – rate of tortured and mutilated bodies dumped at the edge of town
    – rate of deaths of police officers
    – rate of deaths of media reporters

    I’m sure we would all pitch in for plane tickets for Preston, Buzzell and Reynolds to travel through the Sunni Triangle without armed escorts to prove how safe it is.

  • What are the casulty rates for the guys at the spear point? You know, the grunts, the truck drivers, the supply companies running convoys, the chopper pilots, gunners etc. I’m not counting the overstaffed staffs or the various general ball washers.

    In WW2, the KIA/WIA rate was around 4% overall, but when you subtract all the staffs and supply units, then the KIA/WIA rate for line animals was around 50%. A big difference.

    Of course, the ball washers will sniff that they might get shot at too so they count. Perhaps, but the line animals get shot at every day whereas the ball washers do so once in a while. The odds of one becoming a “statistic” increase with each firefight.

    Even with a 1% chance of getting zapped grows to 40% after about 20 or so firefights. Of course, this is statistically which is meaningless when its your ass on the line.

  • No statistical analysis will bring back the dead! Mr. Bush, when all is said and done in regard to Iraq, should be tried for waging an aggressive war on a soveriegn nation without just provocation. Mr. Bush and his apologist political allies are making profit on the misery they have begun. And, in spite of such huge profits they are making, they have unleashed a very strong and virulent anti-American sentiment among many people and nations throughout the world. Heck of a good job Georgie!

    Americans of all ilks: it is imperative that we vote the rascals out in ’06 and ’08. Our heritage and bodypolitick are at stake. Mr. Bush and his crew are very happy to move our nation toward a more authoritarian reality. It keeps the profit coming in without that nasty set of rights getting in the way. You know, the rights that appear as the first 10 Amendments of our Constitution. I will be much more concerned about the fascists that are right here in America than some made up term that juxtaposes the Islamic faith with an Italian phenomenon.

    Just a thought: people who know the Koran know that it allows for democracy set within the cultural confines of the Islamic faith. This whole call to arms to bring democracy to the Middle East is such a brazen canard it is repulsive to civilized, educated people everywhere. -Kevo

  • The president doesn’t have to sneak in and out of Philadelphia when he visits and I bet Tony Snow doesn’t wear body armor when he goes to Phialdelphia.

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