The LA Times (link provided above) is reporting that the death toll of Iraqi civilians as a result of the war is much higher than the 30,000 the Bush administration has acknowledged. At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies.
Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but have not been counted because of serious lapses in recording the number of deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide.
The toll, which is dominated by civilians but probably also includes some security forces and insurgents, is daunting: Proportionately, it's as if 600,000 Americans had been killed nationwide during the last three years. In the same period, at least 2,520 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.
Iraqi government officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Anbar, where local health workers often are prevented from compiling the data because of violence, security crackdowns, electrical shortages and failing telephone networks.The Health Ministry acknowledged the undercount. In addition, the ministry said its figures exclude the three provinces that make up the semi-autonomous northern region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad, the capital.
The Lancet estimate that came out a year ago put the death toll at what is probably a more accurate 100,000 plus (especially once you consider those that died because of bad living conditions in the post-war period), but either way, it's much more than the Bush administration is admitting to.
Also, NPR analyzes a civilian's death in the fog of war here.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
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It says almost everything you need to know that while we go to great pains to determine exactly how many American and coalition soldiers have died in Iraq, we are not too awfully concerned with the number of Iraqi civilians who have died. Whatever your politics on the war, we are required to know what our war has cost in the number of lives it has ended. But of course, such numbers are politically inconvenient for those who supported the invasion.
By the way, here's a really interesting story on the radio show "This American Life" that's all about the survey that went into producing that 100,000 figure. It suggests that the number is far more accurate than it's been given credit for:
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/05/300.html
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