According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, this month so far there have been 45 deaths of soldiers in Iraq, 42 American, 3 Polish, 34 hostile (all American), 11 non-hostile (8 American, 3 Polish).
According to the weekly stats for wounded, 180 Americans have been wounded in hostile incidents and nbot returned to duty within 72 hours, and 112 have been wounded and returned to duty within 72 hours, although the numbers are much lower for the week of Dec. 8-14 than for Dec. 1-7.
Some might say that the fighting is dying down, as this is lower than last month. But a perusal of the past year shows that if this trend continues, this will be the third most deadly month for the coalition for this year, and the fourth most deadly if you only count hostile-fire deaths.
Another statistic to look at: with the exception of March, every month in 2004 so far has had more coalition soldiers die (either total or just due to hostile fire) than the corresponding month in 2003 [admittedly, January and February are trivial cases, as there was no war in Jan '03 or Feb '03]. December '03 so far has passed December '04 in hostile deaths (34 v. 32), but not yet in total deaths (45 v. 48). But we're only hlaf-way through the month.
Moire cheerfulness: I think that over the course of 2005, there will be at least 4 months with more than 100 hostile deaths.
That is all.
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