by Pieter J. Friedrich
11/18/03
Despite protests to the contrary by the see no evil Republican party-liners, the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are rather disturbing. After a seven month campaign the Second Gulf War casualty count has surpassed the casualty count of the first three years of the Vietnam War.
A Nov. 14th, 2003 Reuters news report says: "A Reuters analysis of Defense Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000.
"By comparison, a roadside bomb attack that killed a soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday [November 12th] brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq, where U.S. forces number about 130,000 troops -- the same number reached in Vietnam by October 1965." Admittedly, this is total war-related deaths - combat deaths in Iraq number 270 as of the 13th. I don't have the combat-only death stats for Vietnam.
If the similarities continue, then things can only get worse. The Reuters report says, "Vietnam casualties, which amounted to 25 deaths from 1956 through 1961, climbed to 53 in 1962, 123 in 1963 and 216 in 1964, Pentagon statistics show...casualties in Vietnam soared to 1,926 in 1965 and peaked at 16,869 in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive."
A closer look at the average casualty statistics for the first three years of the Vietnam War is very revealing...especially when those statistics are compared with average Second Gulf War statistics.
For instance, on average the first three years of the Vietnam War claimed the lives of .35 soldiers a day - that is, 392 deaths over about 1095 days. Currently in Iraq the casualty rate stands at an average of 1.8 dead a day - that is, 397 deaths over about 210 days.
Also, former President Johnson had 17,000 troops stationed in Vietnam compared to the 130,000 currently in Iraq. The rates of death are not drastically different - one of 72,000 soldiers in Iraq dies each day while one of 49,000 in Vietnam died each day (during the first three years). So the death rate among soldiers stationed in Iraq is about 2/3rds that of the death rate among the troops stationed in Vietnam during the first three years of that war.
Things started out very slowly in Vietnam - and the death rates rose and rose and rose. The same could very well happen in Iraq, especially if the Vietnam/Iraq similarities remain constant.
