Here’s our latest monthly, highly abbreviated version of the Iraq Index, published and updated twice a week by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution:
Americans Killed in Action, Iraq (monthly average)
2003: 32
2004: 59
2005: 56
2006: 58
2007: 85
May: 117
Americans Killed in Action, Vietnam (monthly average)
1965: 128*
1966: 420
1967: 767
1968: 1140
1969: 785
____
* = First U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam, 5.3.65
Vietnam table compiled by Galen Fox using Defense Department sources.
Crude Oil Production (m. bbls./day)
Prewar Peak: 2.50
Goal: 2.10 (Revised downward, 1/07)
actual: 2.02 (5/07)
Electricity (megawatts)
Prewar: 3,958
Goal: 6,000
actual: 3,675 (5/07)
Since our last monthly report, the American KIA total rose from April's 95 to 117. The surge continues to cost American lives. The April-May two-month total of 212 KIA is the highest for any two-month period in the war. [Please note: the number of KIA is almost always lower than the media-reported total of American deaths, which covers all causes, including non-hostile. Our Iraq and Vietnam figures are KIA only.]
Both oil and electricity output declined from April to May, dropping below pre-war levels in the case of electricity, and in oil's case, dropping below even the target revised downward in January.
O’Hanlon has offered his evaluation of the surge’s success to date. Here, from that evaluation:
the basic US and Iraqi military inputs to the surge have now been almost entirely deployed. The picture that emerges from Iraq as summer begins is inherently mixed. Given America's waning patience with the war and the bad circumstances that prevailed in Iraq when then surge began, that conclusion is on balance bad news. . .
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