The Wikileaks Iraq war logs have made it possible to map the occurrence of violent death during the Iraq war:
Wikileaks, mapping of Iraq war deaths
(source, where you can zoom in on the map)
This follows more or less closely the population density of Iraq, meaning that the war has been equally horrible for everyone, with the exception of some parts of the north of the country where violent death has been somewhat less common:
Iraq population density map
(source)
Some key figures:
- The Wikileaks database records 109,032 deaths in total, 66,081 civilians, 23,984 insurgents and 15,196 Iraqi security forces. Baghdad alone saw 45,497 casualties. Colation forces lost 3,771 soldiers in the period covered.
- There were 65,439 IED explosions (improvised explosive devices), resulting in 31,780 deaths. Another 44,620 IEDs were found and cleared.
- Here’s how some of these numbers evolved over time:
(source)
(source)
These numbers are probably low estimates because not every event is recorded.
Let’s focus on Baghdad for an instant, the epicenter of violence. December 2006 was the worst month. Below are the details of one of the city’s deadliest days, Dec. 20. There were 114 separate episodes of violence that day, resulting in the deaths of about 160 Iraqi citizens and police officers (an interactive version of the map is here).
(source, click image to enlarge)
More maps on Iraq here and here. More human rights maps in general are here.
- Iraq War logs released by Wikileaks shed new light (flowingdata.com)
- “Wikileaks Iraq War Logs – Part Two” and related posts (googlemapsmania.blogspot.com)
We should have been long gone after finding Sadam Hussein. This was all wasted bloodshed. It is lunacy that our President is using soldiers as community organizers. Soldiers kill people, destroy stuff, and move on. Handing out school books, candy, building soccer fields is all public relations nonsense. An occuyping force is told how much everyone is loved, because we got the guns. The minute we’re gone, they’re dancing in the street and burning flags. OUT OF IRAQ! OUT OF AFGHANISTAN! OUT OF LIBYA! OUT OF YEMEN! OUT OF NATO! WHy don’t Russia and China have foreign outposts all over the world? Why only the USA?
All that bloodshed would have happened whether or not we left right after finding Saddam Hussein. What we should have done is find a way to stop it since we were there. It was a civil war that we caused entirely because we ousted Saddam Hussein and destabilized their government without having an immediate plan to re-stabilize it.
So, you think soldiers SHOULD just kill people, destroy stuff, and move on? You think we shouldn’t try?
Russia and China don’t have foreign outposts all over the world because they are not the most powerful countries in the world. The United States is. I’m not excusing it, but that’s the truth.
The fact that you think we should be out of Libya and NATO and the fact that you think soldiers should just kill people, destroy stuff and move on and not make any attempts to interact with the community they are in shows more than anything that you don’t really care about people. If we left Libya, although it’s safer today than when we went in, innocent people would still die as a result. Some people feel that, as the most powerful country in the world, the United States has a moral obligation to help out when it can. Obviously not everyone agrees, but in this case, the majority of the people on the ground in Libya wanted the United States’ help. We helped save lives, and that makes me proud to be American.
Um, why exactly did the US go in to “find” and kill Saddam Hussein, anyway. Did he do something to the US?
All I know is that the Iraqis are happy he is gone. Some loved him many hated him and the Americans stayed to keep the order in Iraq when the people started to steal.( there was no police force after the invasion) then Shiites and sunnis started to fight a civil war for power of the goverment. Then when NATO started to bring the civil war to a close. The iraqis felt oppressed to the attacked the NATO forces. So they had to stay to finish it. If the mission is done I don´t know.
What hoboduke said!
Many people in the UK still don’t want to take responsibility for the horrors we inflicted on the Iraqi people – this data shows with absolute certainty the damage that our brand of forced ‘democracy’ does to other countries. And yet we’re baldly attempting the arrangement of another puppet government in Libya, right now?
Reparations for the Iraqi people, constitutional and legal change in the UK which forbids us from undertaking these kinds of actions again. This will happen over and over if we don’t face up to it.
The National Transitional Council is not a puppet government, it is the internationally accepted representative of the Libyan people. It existed before the international community became involved. I know that it makes it a lot easier to justify getting out if you think that Libya is like Iraq or Afghanistan, but the fact is it’s not. At all.
I’m all for reparations for the Iraqi people in some way. I’m not trying to call you stupid. But Libya really is a unique situation.
Let’s make the facts clear here and I won’t suger coat them. We should NEVER have been in iraq in the first place. We had and have a war we’re fighting already and any strategist will tell yOu” You don’t fight a war on two fronts”. Sadam kept the people in line for a reason an now we know why. They don’t care about you person or fanily or property over there. If you don’t practice tHe same religion or come from the same tribe, their GOING TO KILL YOU! They want the USA to pay for accidental killings then turn around and kill their own children if they think they even think they have Dishonored them. Sadam wasn’t going anywhere and I think we all miss him just a little bit.
iraq never posed a threat to the US, so the war was needless from day one. Yes Sadam was a nasty murderer but the cost in having him overthrown vastly outweighed the benefits.
66,000 civilians, that’s like 5x the deaths of 9/11. So who’s the terrorist again?
66,000 civilians, that’s like 5x the deaths of 9/11. Graham, this is not counting the civilian deaths of 2003 when the US Army was not in the business of counting collateral damages. You think IEDs are deadly to civilians, well precision guided high yield missiles and bombs are vastly more deadly to civilians when the orders to fire them are given by people with no respect for human life except for the life of their own troops. Make it instead 15x, 20x and you won’t be far of the marks.
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Its crazy to expect soldiers to go from killing people to handing out candy – no wonder so many of them come back with mental health issues – its also crazy to expect the people to forgive the soldiers – sure they’ll take the candy – but you are kidding yourself if you think there is any real human connection.
OH come on folks!! Stop nagging!! We did find them
Nuke-killers and weapons of mass-destruction and stopped the evil doers didn’t we?? Stupid fucks!
Khaddafi was a puppet! So was bin Ladin. Who needs to be prosecuted are the people behind the killing of hundreds of thousands, preferably that than to put resources on those who killed a couple of thousand. Stop drinking your tap water I think your governments are putting something intellect-lowering in it.