It depends on what the meaning of ‘casualty’ is

February 2, 2007

What’s the best way to lower the number of casualties in Iraq? Easy, redefine “casualty.”

Statistics on a Pentagon Web site have been reorganized in a way that lowers the published totals of American nonfatal casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of force health protection and readiness at the Defense Department, said the previous method of tallying casualties was misleading and might have made injuries and combat wounds seem worse and more numerous than they really were.

And if there’s one thing we know for sure, the administration certainly doesn’t want to be “misleading” about Iraq related numbers, right?

This “recalculation” of casualties was surprisingly helpful for the administration. On Monday, the Defense Department’s website said “nonmortal casualties” in Iraq totaled 47,657. But by changing the meaning of the word “casualty” nearly four years into the war, presto chango, the Defense Department now shows that number dropping to 31,493.

Paul Sullivan, director of research and analysis of Veterans for America, said the changes actually meant the Pentagon was trying to conceal the rising toll of injuries and illness.

Ya think?

I don’t need to wonder anymore where Karl “It’s all in the maths” Rove gets his mathematical abilities.

Sending them to Iraq as targets, er, infantry is no longer an option. At this point strapping this scum to a JDAM ala Major Kong is about the only use for them.

  • They think 31 thousand is going to sound better than 47 thousand?

    Doesn’t make that big a difference inside my head.

  • Lance is right. All this does is chisel at the margins of bad news, and that’s not enough at this point to make Iraq anything other than a huge stinking disaster.

    But I’m sure they’ll keep doing it. It’s what they know how to do, and it’s the only thing they can try to do to avoid the hideous reality.

  • I remember in 1967, the idiots redefined the definition of “secure hamlet” in Vietnam, leading them to report that December that the NLF and the North Vietnamese were failing in their objective to control the countryside and we were “winning.” And then came Tet…

    As the old saying goes, “statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.”

  • Why didn’t they just trot out Tony Snow to say, “47,000 is just a number. It has no meaning.”

    They were probably getting too close to the 50,000 casualty benchmark which would have attracted too much bad attention on the war.

  • Just watch them re-define the numbers of *mortal* casualties; I wouldn’t put it past them. And Lance is right; 10 thou may seem to them like a “big saving”, but , even 31.5 is still 31.5 too many

  • Does this mean the “non-casualties” won’t be eligible for health benefits, Purple Hearts etc?

    Maybe not:

    “…reorganized in a way that lowers the published totals of American nonfatal casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

    So, there are the numbers we see and the numbers they see.

    S.O.P.

  • You realize of course that the number of deaths is also underestimated.

    Specifically, those mortally wounded who are flown out of Iraq to the U.S. military medical facilities in Europe, and who then die in Europe, are not counted because they did not die *in* the “theater of operations” (i.e., in Iraq). Also, those who are brain-dead and are shipped stateside so their families can decide when to pull the plug are not counted either, for the same reason.

    I should say though that I don’t know whether these forms of undercounting war dead are new to the Bush wars, or whether this just continues a traditional military practice.

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