Fatalities in Iraq

Hmmmm....
Hmmmm again.....

So 42 hostile coalition fatalities in February, 33 in March, and 46 in April. 60, 40, and 51 total coalition fatalities, respectively, during the same three months...
If this trend continues, well, actually the current trend seems to be a fairly stable level of coalition losses, neither increasing or decreasing. (I choose three months as a time period in order to look at the situation post-elections).

Well, we'll see what happens in May.

So what are the long-term fatality trends?
Well, ignoring non-hostile fatalities, and ignoring flukey months like Nov. 2003, Feb. 2004, April 2004, and November 2004 (i.e. months with unusually high or low fatality counts - I don't include January 2005 as a flukey month because I am not counting non-hostile fatalities), the trend was upwards up until January 2005. (~20 deaths/month from May 2003-September 2003, ~ 35 deaths/month from October 2003-March 2004, ~45-65 May 2004-Auguest 2004, ~ 58-74 September 2004-January 2005). Immediately after the election, fatalities went down for two straight months, but they went up again in April, so it looks as if the immediate bounce from the elections, if that's what it was, is over.

In any case, Iraqi casualties are still pretty high. If they increase greatly, US troops might need to go on more active patrols, which will bring our casualties up again.

We shall see.

That is all.