CBO Outlines OIF, OEF Casualty Statistics

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 3,462 service members died as a result of hostile action during Operation Iraqi Freedom, which ended Aug. 31, 2010. Another 31,947 were wounded in action during OIF. During combat operations in and around Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, which ended in November, more than 1,800 U.S. service members died in hostile operations while another 20,000 more were wounded, according to CBO. The Dec. 17 report agreed with conventional assertions that survival rates for the two conflicts were greater than they were during the Vietnam War, but not as high as some had surmised. “Prior to the surge in troop levels that began in early 2007, the survival rate was 90.4 percent in Iraq – compared with 86.5 percent in Vietnam,” CBO stated in the report’s executive summary. Roughly 2.6 percent of all who were wounded in action endured an amputation, with 9 percent of those who were medically evacuated ultimately lost a limb. Another 220 service members more died under non-hostile circumstances between March 2003 and March 2007 in Iraq than what would have been expected during peacetime, CBO stated. In Afghanistan, roughly 200 more service members died under non-hostile circumstances through December 2013, when compared to what would have been expected in peacetime, CBO concluded.