Iraq War Raises Statistical Questions

Some interesting data I unearthed today. The proportion of British forces deaths related to the size of the deployment is 1.58%. The US forces proportion is 2.13% (sources: About.com and icasualties.org). Does this reflect the danger of the theatres they are operating in or the quality of soldiering? It certainly does not represent quality of kit, everything you ever read about the war suggests the US have the world’s best equipment. But the highest casualty count by deployment is Bulgaria which has lost 3.25% of its troops.

What is also interesting is the proportion of deployment by population. 0.05% of the US population is in Iraq next is Georgia at 0.018% and then us at 0.013%. In this regard, the US has lost 0.0009% of its population in the war in Iraq. Unfortunately, the sketchy nature of the data means I am unable to comprehensively balance the picture with statistics on the percentage of Iraqi civilians killed, but some reports put this at 2.5% (source: BBC News article). Sobering stuff.