The Mathematics of the War in Iraq

In today’s column in The New York Times, William Safire casually dashes off this oft-repeated Republican trope: “In Iraq, where casualties in Baghdad could be compared to civilian losses to everyday violence in New York and Los Angeles…”

Scripps Howard News Service’s Robert Hardaway writes: “The fact remains that American soldiers are far safer in Baghdad than in America’s crime-ridden cities during off-duty hours.”

But are they really?

As of January 8, 2004, the Associated Press reports:

As of Thursday, Jan. 8, 485 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Defense Department. Of those, 333 died as a result of hostile action and 152 died of non-hostile causes, the department said.

The British military has reported 55 deaths; Italy, 17; Spain, eight; Bulgaria, five; Thailand, two; Denmark, Ukraine and Poland have reported one each.

Since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 347 U.S. soldiers have died–218 as a result of hostile action and 129 of non-hostile causes, according to the Defense Department’s figures.

Since the start of military operations, 2,445 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. Non-hostile injured numbered 383.

The latest deaths reported by the military, not included in the above total: –Nine soldiers died Thursday afternoon when a helicopter crashed south of Fallujah, Iraq. –A 3rd Corps Support Command soldier died Wednesday of injuries suffered in a mortar attack west of Baghdad.

A total of 494 American servicemen and servicewomen have died since combat began on March 25, 2003 and an additional 2,445 have been wounded. There have been 292 days since combat began. Extrapolating this to an annual rate at 365 days, this makes an annual Iraq war casualty rate of:

618 deaths (or, if they had occured on urban streets in the United States, “murders”)

3,056 injuries (or, if they had taken place here at home, “assaults/muggings”)

If we stop here, these rates appear to coincide with prowar pundits’ assertion that American troops are nearly–just 3.7 percent less–as safe walking the streets of Basra as they are those of the Bronx. According to a New York Times article dated January 1, 2004, “The final tally for 2003 [in New York City] was 596 homicides, up from 587 in 2002, according to official statistics released yesterday.”

NYC and Iraq–both involve roughly 600 deaths per annum.

However, raw numbers only tell part of the story–and nothing significant. If 596 people are murdered in a town of 2,000 people, that town is an out-of-control Wild West hellhole where you’ll almost certainly be killed if you live there more than a year or two. If they occur in a megapolis of 25,000,000 people, that is an incredibly safe to live. Odds are you’ll live to a ripe old age there.

Per capita crime determines how safe a place is, not raw numbers. If you really want to compare the odds of being murdered in Iraq to those of being murdered in New York, consider the chances of you personally getting whacked. That’s entirely a per capita question.

There are 125,000 American troops serving in Iraq. By contrast, the updated 2002 Census Report says that 8,008,278 people live in New York City–64 times the American “population” of Iraq.

For New York City to become exactly as “safe” as Iraq for Americans, then, New York’s annual murder rate would have to skyrocket: to 38,183 homicides. Believe me, Mayor Bloomberg would call a curfew and declare martial law were that to occur. Alternatively, for Baghdad to become as safe as New York would represent a stunning achievement for the U.S. coalition: just 10 deaths a year. In the final analysis, fewer than one American would lose his or her life in Iraq every month.

Iraq “just as safe as New York”? Like the Right’s other claims, were only that it was so. Denial aside, there is no more dangerous place on earth for a U.S. citizen to be than occupied Iraq.