One of the arguments I frequently hear when debating whether Democrats are actually any better than Republicans, or whether Bush is really in worse than Clinton, is that Clinton waged many wars of his own. I decided to do a little digging to find out whose wars were most fatal, and based on what I’ve found: George W. Bush’s wars are by far more fatal, but my data on Clinton’s wars is incomplete. I’ve posted my findings below. Please let me know if you have additional information or corrections to this data.
It’s always terrible to make these things into a numbers game, but I still hope this is useful in evaluating the scale of warfare under Clinton as opposed to Bush.
US military deaths under Clinton and Bush:
While calculating civilian deaths is very difficult, getting numbers for US soldiers killed is easier. However, these numbers are total active duty deaths, including deaths from illness, so they might not be a good reflection of combat related deaths.
Clinton: 7500 (total military active duty military deaths from 1993-2000)
Bush: 8792 (total military active duty deaths from 2001-2006)
Source: Department of Defense report (PDF). Note: This doesn’t include this year or next year. Bush isn’t done yet.
Civilian deaths under Clinton:
Because there were several different small military actions ordered by Clinton, tallying everything is rather difficult. If I’ve forgotten anything here, or if you have sources with different numbers, let me know.
Battle of Mogadishu: “More than one thousand.”. I could only find info for this one particular battle, I don’t know how many more died during the Somalia missions.
Operation Uphold Democracy – I can’t find any statistics for this one. The Department of Defense only indicated 4 “non-hostile” deaths of a US military personnel in this operation, so it’s not completely inconceivable that no civilians were killed. (As always, more information is welcomed).
Operation Desert Strike – ???
Operation Desert Fox – 600-2000.
Note: My understanding is that there was ongoing bombing in Iraq throughout Clinton’s presidency, mostly over “no fly zones.” I don’t have any information on how many civilians deaths may have occurred and that’s where the numbers comparison really falls apart. Depending on how fatal these raids were, they may tip the scales towards Clinton being the more lethal president.
Update: Iraq claimed that 323 civilians were killed in between Desert Fox and February 2001. They also say the bombing was escalated during this time period. So 162 deaths per year from the no-fly bombing is would be a high estimate of total civilian casualties during these campaigns.
1998 missile strike against Afghanistan – 21.
1998 missile strike against Sudan – Unknown (So far as I can tell, Sudan never reported a number).
Kosovo War – Yugoslavia claimed that NATO attacks caused between 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties. NATO acknowledged killing at most 1,500 civilians. Human Rights Watch counted a minimum of 488 civilian deaths.
So here are some approximations:
Somalia: 1500
Haiti: 10
Iraq (Desert Fox): 2000
Iraq (Ongoing bombing): 1296
Afghanistan: 21
Sudan: 50
Yugoslavia: 5700
Total: 10,577
Civilian deaths under George W. Bush:
Afghanistan: 7,300-14,000.
Iraq: 74,689 – 81,394.
Total: 81,989 – 95,394
It would certainly take a lot of civilians deaths under Clinton’s bombing campaigns in Iraq to come close to Bush’s numbers.
October 5, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Iraq said there were over 300 civilian deaths from no-fly bombings between the end of Desert Fox in December of 1998 and this BBC news story from February of 2001: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1175950.stm
October 5, 2007 at 9:30 pm
323 to be exact: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2001/0220nofl.htm
January 27, 2009 at 5:10 pm
These numbers are nothing compared to the amount of Iraqis that died due to our economic sanctions and infrastructure decimation campaign from Bush Sr. to Clinton to Bush Jr.
Malnutrition is deadlier than bombs.
February 22, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Yeah, it would be nice of the commentator to represent that most of Clintons losses were mostly under a time of “peace” without major theater conflict.
Conveniently, that was left out.
November 27, 2010 at 9:38 pm
you forgot the 1 MILLION civilians (half children) who died under Bill Clintons 8 years of sanctions (verified by UNICEF) .. also the Iraq civillian deaths are 90% (my guess) perpetrated by Iraqi car bombers etc against their own people .. these numbers you can verify by using the IBC website .. thus Clinton killed many many many many more civillians ..
November 27, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Harflimon ..
the sanctions were as follows:
George Bush sr – 2 years
Bill Clinton – 8 years
George W Bush – 2 years
after two years the effect of the sanctions was realized as to it’s true affect .. thus Bush sr. was not guilty .. Clinton when taking office was aware of the affect of the sanctions and kept the sanctions on for his entire 8 years .. thus Clinton was guilty .. Bush jr. when taking office also was aware of the affect of the sanctions and kept them on for 2 years before removing them .. thus guilty, however he did remove them a year before the decision to go to war based on WMD’s which the IAEC website (even today) confirms that there was a couple hundred tons of yellow cake there and a couple hundred tons of HMX & RXD there (which both are used to make a nuke) and which also ABC ran a story on the removal of the yellowcake from Iraq to Canada in 2007 ..
November 27, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Operation Desert Strike – ???
the attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan were called ..
Operation Infinite Reach
December 11, 2010 at 8:12 pm
“…might not be a good reflection of combat related deaths.”?
Check the “hostile action” column under your own source…
Clinton: 1 (total from 1993-2000)
Bush: 3,457 (total from 2001-2007)
Did you just make an honest (but incredibly imbecilic) mistake with this?
December 11, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Ralph – I don’t including only hostile action deaths are an adequate measure either. You’ll notice accidental deaths went down during the Clinton years as well. I would imagine that’s because one is less likely to get into accidents when one’s not in the middle of a war zone.