Updated 30 August 2004. Total 1,000 US Dead -- 81 British, Iraqi and others, not included.
J. writes:
I have been using your site to analyze the pattern of US military deaths in the Iraq/Afghanistan invasion an occupation. I was surprised when I recently updated my spreadsheet with data since June 8. I had expected to see a decline in the number of deaths since the beginning of the "Iraqi" government on June 28, 2004. However, my analysis shows that deaths per day has actually increased from 1.83 deaths per day (during the pre-Iraq Occupation phase) to 2.02 deaths per day in the post-Iraqi government phase (the invasion phase had 4.12 deaths per day).
Another way to view this data is to examine linear regression lines of deaths per day. When I first plotted this data in April 2004, the regression including the invasion phase trended downward, with expected deaths per day reaching zero sometime in 2006. The regression line excluding the invasion phase trended upward, with expected deaths steadily climbing over time.
As of August 27, 2004, both regression lines now trend upward, with no end in sight. Moreover, the predicted death per days since April closely fit the actual deaths per day. I have watched how stories of US military deaths were almost always covered by yahoo.com, up until the Iraqi government installation. At that time, reporting of US deaths has fallen off almost completely, despite an actual increase in deaths per day.
No wonder Mr. Bush's popularity stopped sliding so fast.
15 July 2003 Source: http://www.dod.mil/releases/archive.html