One would expect when troops of one army directly engage those of another that casualties will increase. It is, after all, combat. Therefore, a subsequent rise in American casualties would indicate that Operation Iron Hammer was a successful counter-offensive. Although the media wouldn't portray it that way, nor would blogistan.

Conversely, fewer or similar amounts of casualties would be indicative of the offensive failing--or at a minimum being a wash.

This begs the question of information. Of course the information that the public is getting isn't real good. But we are getting some. So, I did some quick number crunching this evening. Using the press releases from the Centcom 'Casualty Report Generator' and a pretty simple methodology I came up with some interesting results. First, as I went through the casualty reports I automatically disregarded reports of 'Non-hostile gunshot wounds' but I included traffic accidents. I did this because many of the casualties that resulted from traffic accidents, were only 'accidents' in a very technical sense. For example, a bomb goes off next to a convoy and a vehicle swerves to avoid the burning remnants of the vehicle just hit and falls into a river or canal. Two soldiers die as a result of this 'accident'. And this was just one example of creative license taken with 'accidents'. So, I included them. I also excluded all casualties in Afghanistan.

For the sake of the Ramadan offensive, I also excluded casualties that resulted in 'transport' helicopters being downed. These were not engaged in offensive actions and thus the casualties were not the result of US forces 'engaging' the enemy, but being engaged by the enemy. There is a difference, although a casualty is still a casualty.

In August there were 18 combat deaths or KIAs. In September there were 18 combat deaths. In October that rose to 36--I assume as a result of the Ramadan Offensive kicking off. And in November, excluding helicopters being downed, after our counteroffensive began there were 33. So, we went from a fairly static number over the summer to an surge in October due to increased enemy actions. Then there was a slight drop of of US casualties in November, at the height of our counteroffensive.

Was the US successful in finding and engaging the enemy? It doesn't appear that way, at least not yet. Centcom annouced several weapons cache seizures as well. But a closer look at the releases indicates that there were not too many weapons in those caches. Using my hypothesis would indicate a rather unsuccessful strategy.

I hope I'm wrong. Only time will tell.