What the US death toll in Iraq reveals

A new poll shows that 53 percent of Americans say the war wasn't worth it.
By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – Sometime in the coming days, the United States military will probably report the 2,000th American military death of the Iraq war.
While in some ways an arbitrary milestone, the tragic figure only tells part of the story when it comes to the human costs and human successes - both foreign and local - of the war.

Perhaps the most striking statistic from this war, compared with any other conflict in US history, shows troops today have a much better chance of surviving if wounded. This is because of vast improvements in body armor and strides in battlefield medicine.

For instance, the ratio of deaths to serious injuries in Iraq is less than half what it was in World War II. As recently as Vietnam, 28 percent of Americans hurt in action died. In Iraq, the ratio is 11 percent. In all, about 15,000 Americans have been wounded in combat here, about half of them seriously enough to go home.

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