The Mathematics of War in Iraq, continued



I've received some interesting feedback concerning my post about US casualties in Iraq. Julian writes:

Your blog entry "The Mathematics of the War in Iraq"

was very convincing. I'd like to make one small

correction.



You claimed that 2,445 American soldiers have been

wounded. However, according to NPR, the Army has

evacuated 9,000 soldiers from Iraq for medical

reasons.

http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1587762

I'm more inclined to believe NPR's estimate than the Pentagon's, and here's why: a good rule of thumb in active combat zone is that injuries outnumber deaths by a ratio of roughly 1 to 15. That said, I used the official Pentagon assessment. There I go, getting criticized for being too conservative.



Then Brian sent the following, far more detailed response:

You have made an error in calculating the relative magnitude of deaths between Bagdad and New York City. You are comparing the rate of homicides in NYC to the whole of the population (just fine) but you compare the deaths of American/Alliance soldiers only to their numbers in Bagdad (rather than to the population as a whole). That is fallacious. To be correct in comparing the homicide rates of these two cities, the whole population of each - troops/cops and general population together - must be used...you didn't do that. For example, you chose Occupier deaths that occurred throughout the country, not Bagdad alone. Obviously, the number of Occupier deaths that occurred only in Bagdad is a subset of the total number you cite.

I'm sticking with my methodology. Conservatives, after all, claim that Iraq is safer for US servicemen than the mean streets of New York City. The best way to compare apples with apples is to rate each scenario's per capita chances of being murdered: the danger to a US serviceman in Iraq is found by dividing the number of killings of US servicemen divided by the total number of servicemen serving there. (And I didn't focus just on Baghdad anyway.) The method that Brian suggests would be a good way to determine whether Iraq or New York are safer as a general part of the population--but that's a different exercise. I don't know what the odds are of being murdered if you're an ordinary Iraqi citizen. But US soldiers are singled out for murder in Iraq. Back here at home, they're not.

It is a mixed bag of facts you use and the result is gobbledygook that does not support your premise that Iraq is a dangerous place...I'm NOT saying Iraq isn't dangerous, just saying what you compare is apples to potatoes and is inconclusive.

It would be better to compare the NYC crime rate to Iraq's crime rate...Your blog entry gives numbers so I shall use them to illustrate:

-------quote---------

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.

--------unquote-------

From http://www.graphicmaps.com/webimage/countrys/asia/iq.htm the Iraqi population is 26,298,000. Add 125,000 Occupiers and that's 26.4 Million. That's a bit over three times the population of NYC you cite. However, I'm not asserting that this comparison is valid (I'm not done yet.) Notice that although the homicide numbers you cite for NYC include all homicides, the homicide numbers you use for Iraq are only for Occupiers and exclude any civilian homicide deaths. Those must be included if the comparison is to be valid. How many civilians have been murdered(killed) since the beginning of hostilities? I have no idea where to begin to gather accurate data but I bet you do. Once you find that number (it's got to be in the tens of thousands) add those civilian deaths to the Occupiers death toll (divide by 26.4 million to get the per capita homicide rate) and then compare that to NYC with 618 homicides per 8 million population...I predict you will find the relative death toll to be far higher in Iraq than on the mean streets of NYC.

I bet that's true. But it's not what I was trying to discuss.

Another way of comparing apples to apples is to compare the death rate of police officers in NYC to that of Occupier troops killed in Iraq + the Iraqi policemen that have been killed. NYC's police force is 38,000 (www.nypd.net) and I doubt more than a handful get killed in a year. Iraqi police force numbers are harder to estimate. Find those numbers and you have a valid comparison...again, I predict it will fairly show that Iraq is a dangerous place.



I hope I have explained how your entry had erroneous comparisons and how useful, fair comparisons can be constructed.

Sorry, but Brian and I are just not talking about the same thing. The question isn't about which place is safer for civilians, or cops, but for US soldiers. And my comparison holds up.



I'll be away from the blog until next week.