Where to find solid data on how many killed soldiers in Iraq

"With the insurgency in Iraq, attacks resulting in American and coalition fatalities have become disturbingly routine... Even for journalists, it can be surprisingly difficult to pin down reliable figures for the cumulative number of casualties." says Hugh Eakin of the New York Review of Books. One of the best sources of Iraq casualties comes from a private citizen who has set up lunaville.org.

Excerpts of the article issued on January 15, 2004.

"With the insurgency in Iraq now in its eighth month, attacks resulting in American and coalition fatalities have become disturbingly routine... Even for journalists, it can be surprisingly difficult to pin down reliable figures for the cumulative number of casualties.

The usual suspects haven't been so helpful in tracking these figures. Several sites like CNN provide running casualty totals, but they're not always accurate up to the minute. The U.S. government announces individual casualties daily on the U.S. Central Command (orCentcom) and the Pentagon Web sites. But these two sites present different kinds of information (and sometimes identify the battle units in question differently), and neither publishes a regular tally. Centcom doesn't provide names and only reports deaths that occur "in theater"—i.e., in Iraq, not after medical evacuation for wounds incurred in action there. The Defense Department releases the names of all fatalities, in and out of theater, but usually several days after the incident. It doesn't mention the wounded at all. Even though the Americans are assisted by the British and several other countries, each country is responsible for tracking its own soldiers (see, for example, Britain's site), and there is no official listing of overall coalition casualties.

One of the best sources of Iraq casualties, surprisingly, comes from a private citizen. Google "coalition casualty count" or "Iraq wounded," and you'll probably turn up lunaville.org, a site that provides numbers for both casualties and wounded, by day and month of the occupation—complete with methodologies, source information for each incident counted, and links to the latest government and media reports. The site was born of simple frustration. Last May, after the official "end" of combat, Michael White was troubled by the lack of reliable casualty information and started doing the math on his own Web page. The 47-year-old data analyst for an Atlanta trucking company sifted through Centcom, Defense, and media reports since the invasion began and tabulated each death that could be verified. He added in the British numbers, and any other verifiable coalition deaths, and then broke these down by time period—up to the fall of Baghdad, from the fall of Baghdad to May 1, and from May 1 to the present.

Within weeks, White was getting so many hits that he decided to set up a real server. Teaming up with civil engineer Patricia Kneisler in Benicia, Calif., White set up lunaville.org. Want to know the fatality rate so far in January? It's 1.47 per day, higher than August, September, and October. (In November, during the so-called Ramadan offensive, it spiked to 3.63.) The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded per day since the beginning of August? 9.55. The total coalition fatalities that are not combat-related? A whopping 177 people, or 30 percent. Total U.S. fatalities since the war ended on May 1? 359. Total coalition soldiers killed by hostile action in the month since the capture of Saddam on Dec. 13? 38. Most common cause of death? Hostile fire (15 percent), followed closely by small explosives attacks (12 percent). The site includes separate pages for, among other things, "fatality metrics," "hostile/non-hostile timeline," and "daily wounded totals." There is also a page devoted to U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan.

White pays attention to his suggestion box, too. Many of those features listed were added at the request of the site's users, who range from the average Joe to armed forces members and their families. Shortly after the site went up, for example, many people e-mailed White requesting that he include the wounded. At the time, the U.S. government was not releasing wounded figures on a regular basis. (Even now, a wounded soldier usually has to have been in an incident involving a coalition fatality to get reported in the daily Centcom releases.) But White learned from a civil servant in Baghdad that the government does issue an internal daily report listing the wounded to U.S. officials and civilians stationed in Iraq. The source began providing White with the numbers, which he confirmed against a weekly total he was able to get on request from Centcom, making it possible for folks back home to track the wounded as well as fatalities.

The site does have its imperfections. One Newsweek reporter recently stationed in Baghdad says the site was a valuable aid but notes that it was hard to tally numbers for a particular battle unit or location without toggling through pages of data. White himself says there is a lot of information and analysis he hasn't yet had the time or resources to add. (Since October, the site has solicited donations to support rising maintenance costs.) As for Iraqi civilians, White says the numbers currently available are simply too unreliable to include. He refers people to iraqbodycount.org, which provides estimates...

... In keeping to the most conservative count and omitting commentary, White and Kneisler are careful to avoid giving a political slant to the site. Some users complain the data is too cold. But with the total American body count fast closing in on 500, the numbers may speak for themselves.

Hugh Eakin is on the staff of the New York Review of Books.

Go to lunaville.org.