May was a Deadly Month

A brief rundown of stats this month, taken from the Iraq Coalition Casualties website.

86 coalition soldiers dead: 78 US, 2 UK, 4 Italian, 2 Bulgarian

67 hostile deaths, 19 non-hostile deaths

Since March 2003, May 2005 was the 8th deadliest month out of 27 months, 7th deadliest if only hostile fatalities are counted (April 2003 had more deaths but fewer hostile deaths than MaY 2005).

95 wounded as of May 7, more recent figures ought to come out soon.

273 Iraqi police and military and 573 civilians killed (although some of these may be from non-hostile incidents like the recent copter crashes).

My previous prediction of 2000 American fatalities by September and 2000 hostile American fatalities by New Year's seems, fortunately, to be an overestimate. Unfortunately, the violence has increased this month to pre-Iraqi-election levels. Only time will tell whether this is a spike or an indication that the insurgency is still going strong. I'm afraid that the second is more likely.

That is all.

That is all.