Is the Army lying about friendly fire deaths?
The military claims fratricides in Iraq and Afghanistan are down 90 percent from previous wars — but experts call the figures suspect. January. 15, 2009 by Mark Benjamin Salon New statistics obtained by Salon depict a spectacularly low number of U.S. Army deaths from friendly fire in the current conflict in Iraq, a mere fraction of historical rates. According to data released to Salon by the Army’s Combat Readiness/Safety Center, only 24 of the 3,059 U.S. Army soldiers killed in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 died by fratricide. That is a rate of .78 percent, less than one-tenth of almost every estimate from previous conflicts stretching back to World War II, despite six years of combat in Iraq, often in confusing urban terrain, using intense U.S. firepower. Army officials gave Salon similar statistics for Afghanistan: six out of 484 dead, or a rate of 1.24 percent. By comparison, the Army’s own estimates of the friendly fire rates for every war from World War II to Desert Storm are
