Considerations on Samarra Casualty numbers

[Capt_Nemo]

Guerrilla units that set up ambushes are mobile small groups that
can fit in a small vehicle easy to hide (car or mini-van) in order to
pass undetected and having the ability to merge with the local
people, for agility and stealth is vital for their survival.

Acording to US reports, there were 2 ambushes. Supposing each one
of them was made by a group that displaces itself in a mini-van
my estimate is that there were about 9 + 9 = 18 guerrillas.

There were 54 deaths reported by the US. I don't know about you, but
I have a pretty good hunch that about 30 of those that were killed
were local civilians...

Hearts and minds US Army style...

[lefty_mcduff]

1. There's also been a change in the description of the guerrillas

The news description on TV has changed from guerrillas wearing Fadhyeen (sic?) *UNIFORMS* to Iraqis wearing "Dark Fadhyeen*LIKE GARB*". I sense this is going to turn out to be yet another cluster-fuck.

[David__77]

6. ridiculous "uniform" claim...

That is such a foolish claim. As if the Fedayeen, if they even still exist, would wear uniforms enabling them to be identified. That would be more than foolish. I doubt it. I think that the media jumped on the disinformation campaign. Certainly, these "reports" are stage-managed.

[markses]

2. That's the rub with this story

If the story coming out of CENTCOM is entirely accurate, that means that the inusrgents were setting up an ambush with two full platoon-sized units - and that is only if ALL the attackers have been killed or wounded (54+18=72). Even if this IS the case, the sheer size of the ambush teams indicate that 1) the insurgents are far better organized, equipped and directed than previous reports indicate and 2) Samarra is for all intents and purposes out of coalition control.

However, the numbers do not seem to reflect what we've been hearing about the ambushes so far. Now, we may - of course - have been lied to about the scope of the ambushes. The other alternative is that CENTCOM had to get in front of a story, so they painted all the dead as insurgents. This is of course the infamous a posteriori "Vietnam Criterion": If it's dead, it's VC.

Some shady business here. Even assuming a dazzling military victory, the situation is much worse than previously reported.

[markus]

3. But the locals dispute several facts

There are only three people in the local morgue. They don't think the casualities where anywhere near this.

Secondly, they indicate that the ambush groups were small, but when the U.S. forces started to fire randomly into the village, locals who have not surrendured their weapons joined the battle.

Shit, we shelled a kindergarten. Too bad we don't have anybody who can read Arabic.

On Edit: Oh, hey, wait! I thought we didn't do the body count thing. Yeah, just like my local paper said in their lead editorial last Sunday. This is *nothing* like Vietnam, Yeah, right.

[Capt_Nemo]

4. That is what struck me

The US military account of the clash is a story full of holes.

Either they killed a lot of civillians, or the battle was in a much
smaller scale, or the whole city was up in arms against the US
troops...

Which one will it be?

[legin]

5. The other thing that struck me was the accruacy of the story

I'm used to the reporting in the basement, down there the reporting goes:

1. "bomb goes off"
2. bit later "bomb goes off, many casualties"
3. bit later "explosion in X, 5 dead, many casualties"
4. again later again "cafe in X bombed, 10 dead, 50 casualties"
5. etc,etc

It's sort of a process of succesive approximation steadly getting closer to the actual figure.

Whereas this one was just "46 killed", not "over 40 dead".

OK so it did change, but that was what didn't hang together for me.