HENRY V: Where is the number of our English dead?
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam, Esquire;
None else of name; and of all other men
But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here!— King Henry V, Act IV, Scene VIII, William Shakespeare
The story of how only 25 men died when the English defeated a much larger French force at Agincourt has always been one of the more preposterous historical notes in Shakespeare’s plays.
According to a June 15 Department of Defense press release, 452 operations were carried out in just over a week after the death of the late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on 7 June. 143 of the operations (32%) were carried out solely by Iraqi forces. Another 255 operations (56%) were carried out by combined coalition and Iraqi forces (with the remaining 54 presumably handled by coalition forces alone). The operations are said to have “netted 759 anti-Iraq forces and killed 104 terrorists.” That’s just shy of two captures or kills per operation.
But in over 300 operations involving coalition forces against nearly 900 presumably dangerous adversaries, only one American soldier appears to have been killed.
Zarqawi, is said to have died in captivity after two 500lb. bombs had been dropped on a house where he was staying, an action that also reportedly killed a woman and a child as well as a couple of Zarqawi’s lieutenants. None of the reports I’ve seen mentioned any coalition casualties during the action against Zarqawi or in the mop-up when they inspected the site and recovered his body and papers that led to further operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq. In fact, despite the fact that ground units didn’t arrive for more than half an hour after the bombing, it was reported that they met little if any resistance.
This is the roster of casualties reported by the DOD between the day of Zarqawi’s death and that of the press release.
| Date | Location | Service | Cause | Deaths |
| 7 June | Ar Ramadi, Iraq | Army | combat operations, improvised explosive device (IED) | 2 |
| 7 June | Mosul, Iraq | Army | dismounted combat operations, small arms fire | 1 |
| 8 June | Buritz, Iraq | Army | combat operations, IED | 1 |
| 8 June | Ar Ramadi, Iraq | Army | combat operations, indirect enemy fire in camp | 2 |
| 8 June | Al Kut, Iraq | Army | combat operations, IED | 1 |
| 8 June | Baghdad, Iraq | Army | combat operations, IED | 1 |
| 9 June | Kirkuk, Iraq | Army | combat operations, IED | 1 |
| 9 June | Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq | Army | combat operations, IED | 1 |
| 9 June | Al Anbar Province, Iraq | Navy | combat operations, land mine | 1 |
| 9 June | Al Anbar Province, Iraq | Marines | wounds received during combat operations | 2 |
| 11 June | Ghanzi, Afghanistan | Army | combat operations, IED and small arms fire | 1 |
| 12 June | Washington, D.C. | Army | non-combat related cause occurring June 5 in Kabul, Afghanistan | 1 |
| 13 June | Korengel, Afghanistan | Army | small arms fire | 1 |
| 14 June | Musa Qulah, Afghanistan | Army | combat operations, small arms fire | 1 |
| 14 June | Al Anbar Province, Iraq | Marines | combat operations | 1 |
| 15 June | Baghdad, Iraq | Army | combat operations, IED | 1 |
| 15 June | Bagram, Afghanistan | Army | non-combat related cause, under investigation | 1 |
That’s 20 dead. I’ve been scanning the releases for the last half of June for reports of any deaths in military hospitals from wounds received during that period and haven’t seen any.
Five of the reported deaths were in Afghanistan or the result of injuries there (in gray). Of the fifteen deaths in Iraq, two (8 June) were the result of a mortar attack on a coalition base. Eight of the Iraq deaths were from IEDs, where soldiers were in their vehicles (gold shading). The green-shaded Navy and Marine deaths on 9 June are the result of a single incident where a HMMWV hit a land mine.
Of the remaining two deaths, the 2,500th casualty in Iraq on 14 June was on a foot patrol.
Which — in my mind, anyway — raises some questions.
If the nearly nine hundred people the DOD press release claims were killed or captured were violent “anti-Iraqi forces” and “terrorists”, wouldn’t they have put up more of a fight? Obviously, they’re quite adept at placing explosive traps, but for dangerous killers they seem to just lie down and die or wait for the handcuffs to be put on once they’re found, if the numbers above are any indication. Perhaps the actions the coalition forces went on didn’t find any of the terrorists. Maybe the terrorists just never learned to post night watches and keep getting caught when they’re asleep. IF they’re not actually dangerous terrorists, then who’s getting killed? Something doesn’t add up.
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