More Soldiers Killed Under Clinton than in Iraq War!

Don Corleone should have been this creative with his “olive oil” books

Republicans have a chart and everything! And it clearly shows that more soldiers were killed annually under Clinton than during the Iraq War.

Unless, of course, you actually look at the numbers being compared to. The original poster linked to this and this report, as evidence of the claim, but makes no real explanation of how he cooked up the numbers.

First of all, the chart compares all deaths under Clinton’s years against Iraqi Active duty deaths. Not ‘active’ deaths, all deaths. If you were killed due to sickness, accident, or old age – you make Clinton’s list. If you die of old age under Bush, or indeed, if you die in active duty in Afghanistan – well, you’re not held against Bush.

That still makes no send, though. They claim that the annual loss under Bush (of Iraqi Active duty soldiers) is 789. But, where does that number come from? Since Bush has been in office 6 years, I would assume that’s the number, but the math doesn’t work out. Still, it’s an easy enough matter.

If you only look at this chart, you’ll see the average for Clinton (1993-2000) is about 937.375 (the rounded up for some reason). If you look at Bush (2001-2004), the average is 1296. Since this chart stops at 2004, that’s as far as we can go.

If you look only at combat deaths, then Clinton averaged .5 soldiers per year over his eight years. Bush averaged 275.5 for his first four years.

But, are there any conservatives who really want to suggest the numbers under Bush have gone down since 2004?

For extra fun, troll the comments at both sites, and see what happens when people point out the folly of the chart.