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Date:         Thu, 28 Jan 1993 10:04:07 -0400
From:         The Integral Differential <DEMON@DESIRE.WRIGHT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Bushwhacking Saddam
Comments: To: POLITICS@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU

>>         It's not being "withheld".  The military made no attempt to
 deterimine
>> enemy losses in that manner.  There would be no "body counts" this time.
>bzzzt.  Wrong answer.  The fact is that the military did indeed make an
>estimate of the dead.  It was highly classified.  And deliberatively
>withheld from the public.

        They made an estimate for purposes of unit strength, but not to put on
a giant tote board reading "Enemy KIA".
        And like any other aspect of planning and tactics, the public doesn't
have a "right" to know what is achieved and how those processes happen.

>>         Ironically, there are those criticzing the military for this, just as
>> there would be if they had done a "body count".  Damned if they do and damned
>> if they don't.
>>         And in my view, yet another thing that the public does not have a
>> "right" to know.  Paraphrasing someone else: if you want answers to those
>> questions, do the research.  The army isn't there to do it for you.
>>         Our casualties, yes.  Theirs, no.
>Why not??  It was our military.  I paid for it.  Why can't I find out the
>damage that it did.  Especially since there is no reason for it to be
>classified.  That's one of things that I really dislike about our military.

        You can find out the results by looking at the maps and the number of
enemy units engaged/destroyed/captured.  Why do you need a body total?  Whether
one person died or a million, the results don't change when N more people die.

>Their need to classify everything regardless of the cause.  I worked for
>defense contractors even before USSR collapsed and you can not believe
>some of the things that are classified.  Brett' the _only_ reason that
>the numbers are classified is because Bush didn't want to be embarrased
>about the amount of Iraqi dead.

        There wasn't any reason to be embarrased.  Nor did the military have to
provide the anti-war crowd with a number to misrepresent, either.  People die
in war (surprise) and whether it's one or a million, it's a tragic consequence.
Why place and importance on the actual number?
        It's not like we were maximizing their KIAs to achieve some sinister
goal.

>>         Now, the military does to loss projections (witness the map with the
>> various Iraqi units displayed as "half effective", etc.), however, I think
> they
>> learned their lesson in Vietnam about turning war into a game of numbers.
>>         The emphasis returned to defeating the enemy, and not counting their
>> dead.
>Since you are wrong here Brett', I wonder if you could tell me how
>you came up with this statement that the military didn't know how many
>Iraqis were killed.

        How am I wrong?

        The military was projecting effectiveness, not the number of dead.
Those are two different, and not necessarily related, things.

Brett'
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