(AP) U.N.: 34,452 Iraq civilians killed in '06

[Eugene]

Posted on Tue, Jan. 16, 2007

U.N.: 34,452 Iraq civilians killed in '06
SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nearly 35,000 civilians were killed last year in Iraq, the United Nations
said Tuesday, a sharp increase from the numbers reported previously by the Iraqi
government.

Gianni Magazzeni, the chief of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said 34,452 civilians
were killed and 36,685 were wounded last year.

Iraqi government figures in early January put last year's civilian death toll at 12,357.
When asked about the difference, Magazzeni said the U.N. figures were compiled from
information obtained through the Iraqi Health Ministry, hospitals across the country and
the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad.

-snip-

The Iraqi Health Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment, but the
government has disputed previous figures released by the U.N. as "inaccurate and
exaggerated."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16470463.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Does this mean Bush

is worse then Saddam?

[Igel]

6. Do we credit Saddam with the killings

committed by Shi'ites against his own supporters in the early '90s, or Ortega with the murders committed by the Contras?

[maddezmom]

2. the Iraqi gov't total is only Baghdad but they tried to push the number as Iraq's total

I'm sure "they" had orders from "them", if you know what I mean.


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Baghdad morgue took in about 16,000 unidentified bodies last year, the bulk of them victims of death squads and other sectarian violence, a source at the morgue told Reuters on Sunday.

About 1,350 bodies were received in December, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Iraqi government has banned officials from releasing data on casualty rates. As throughout the year, between 80 and 85 percent of these were victims of violence.

The morgue data -- for Baghdad only -- suggest that a figure of 12,320 civilian deaths in "terrorist violence" in 2006, given two weeks ago by Interior Ministry sources, does not include all the victims of the bloodletting in Iraq. The Interior Ministry statistics exclude violent deaths classed as "criminal."

Since the morgue statistics also do not take account of the many deaths outside Baghdad, nor indeed of all violent deaths in the capital, the total death toll is certainly higher.

DU Link : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2688423&mesg_id=2688423

[Doctor_J]

4. Sounds like this number is nothing more than a "bare minimum"

cooked up by the Iraqi Interior Ministry, who work for Cheney.

[sabra]

3. k & r for the truth

[rocktivity]

5. 34,000 per year times 3.8 years equals 129,200

Does this mean that it is now "officially" okay to believe that the Iraqi civilian casualty rate is in six figures?

:eyes:
rocknation

[uppityperson]

7. K&R