WTF? 30,000 Iraqi Casualties?

[rucky]

I've been hearing this number thrown around recently, and was just wondering how it was arrived upon. It appaeared again in a votetoimpeach.org email i got this morning.

"President Bush has spent $79 billion attacking Afghanistan and Iraq and seeks $87 billion more for another year of violence. What he calls "one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history" has taken more than 30,000 Iraqi lives, destroyed "tens of billions" in facilities essential to life, electricity, water supply, sewage disposal, according to Paul Bremer, and left the whole country destitute, in turmoil, growing violence and rage. Thousands perished in Afghanistan where the destruction remains unrepaired, the people disoriented and impoverished, the highway from Kabul to Kandahar is impassable and violence is mounting."

I doubt the 30,000 part is from Paul Bremer, even though the wording makes it sound that way.

Any number of casualties is appalling, as is talking about war in accounting terms. But when numbers like this are used so casually like that, they will be heavily debated. I'm skeptical as well.

I googled around to try to find the source or methodology for this stat, and didn't come up with much (mostly references to the first gulf war, and pre-war predictions). http://www.iraqbodycount.net has their current range at 6100 - 7100. They explaing their methodology pretty thoroughly, and it's not perfect but it's still pretty solid... and waaaay different from 30,000. The Pentagon/DOD...well, they're not even bothering, and if they did it would just be more lies.

So where did this 30,000 come from? Is it really good for the cause to throw around nice, round, shocking numbers like that without any attribution? Have WE resorted to propaganda?

Any clarification on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[graham67]

1. I can't remember the source!

I have heard of 37,000+ Iraqi casualties, reported by Iraqi hospitals to a news source. If I remember correctly there were 8,000+ in Baghdad alone.

[dofus]

2. Casualties

means all killed and wounded. We tend to think it means killed, but the dead are only a subset of all casualties. So thirty thousand killed AND wounded sounds about right.

[rucky]

5. But it's not being used in that context...

"What he (Dubya) calls "one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history" has taken more than 30,000 Iraqi lives, "

was from the votetoimpeach email I got this morning.


I'd buy it too if it included injured.

[Caution]

6. Exactly

It is actually "better" to wound than to kill an enemy on the field of combat, which is why landmines are so popular. Landmines are designed to damage rather than kill. This sounds great except the damage caused by landmines is typically very extensive (loss of limbs often results). The reason behind this is that if you kill a soldier, the body is generally left while the battle continues, however if you injure, you actually remove three soldiers from the field of combat as the assist the injured party to get medical assistance. Isn't war just such a fun thing? God I hate these bastards.

[Brotherjohn]

3. I believe they are including Iraqi soldiers.

Note it just says "30,000 Iraqi lives". http://iraqometer.com/ has the civilian total at 6200 and the military total at 10200. That's nearly 20,000 total, anyway (a horrible price if the war was for nothing).

Though the numbers are subject to debate, I think they are trying to be truthful. A life lost is a life lost. Many Iraqi soldiers are forced conscriptions, and these totals may be underestimates.

[rucky]

8. Thanks, but...

It does make the numbers seem a bit more in the ballpark (although the low-end estimates from those sources put it at about half of 30K).

I can't imagine a reporter citing the iraq-o-meter (or iraq body count for that matter). There's gotta be an NGO or some other organization keeping track of this. Of course, USAID and "Nasty" Nastios are keeping a pretty tight leash on the aid workers out there.

[HereSince1628]

4. Don't know, Iraqbodycount.net guesses between 6k and 8K

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

But how can anyone know?

What is the definition a civilian death related to the War (are children who died of infectious disease because of lack of medical care & clean water war deaths)?

Were Gulf War I, bombing during the sanctions, and Gulf War II all eras of the same war?

I hope that the Neocon cabal sees the dead people when they try to sleep.

[Vadem]

7. a total figure of 37,137 civilians killed (Village Voice via)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/083103A.shtml


Counting the Bodies
by James Ridgeway
Village Voice | Mondo Washington

Publication Date September 3 - 9, 2003

Hard to Keep Track of the Dead in Iraq

Amid increasing suspicions that the U.S. media have been underestimating Iraqi casualties, here are the latest more or less reliable figures culled from several sources, including the government:

Iraq Body Count (iraqbodycount.net) reported that the number of civilian deaths in Iraq ranges from 6,113 to 7,830. Military.com reports that as of August 28 a total of 281 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the start of the invasion-that includes 143 since major fighting was declared "over" on May 1. The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (lunaville.org/warcasualties/summary.aspx), based on tallies from Centcom, the Defense Department, and the British Ministry of Defence, shows that, as of August 27, 281 U.S. soldiers, 50 British soldiers, and two "other" coalition soldiers have been reported killed. The estimated wounded? 1,212.

But by far the most interesting and quite possibly most realistic report comes by way of Jude Wanniski, the supply-side economist and ex-Wall Street Journal reporter who has struck up a correspondence with Mohammad al-Obaidi, an Iraqi doctor living in Britain. Al-Obaidi coordinates the small Iraqi Freedom Party, which favors free enterprise and is both anti-Saddam and anti-U.S. Al-Obaidi tells the Voice that members of his family have been tortured and killed by Saddam's secret police, and others have been killed in American air and ground attacks. Al-Obaidi, whose brother is a retired general now living in Iraq, says he has no ties with any intelligence service and has nothing to do with the American stooge Ahmed Chalabi.

Al-Obaidi told Wanniski that "hundreds of our party's cadre" spent five weeks interviewing undertakers, hospital officials, and ordinary citizens in all of Iraq (except for what's controlled by the Kurds) and came up with a total figure of 37,137 civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion, 6,103 of them in Baghdad. Those figures, according to al-Obaidi, do not include members of unofficial militias, paramilitary groups, or Saddam's Fedayeen units.

[rucky]

9. Thanks!

At least the number has some attribution to it now - and some explanation to methodology...

More research on Dr al-Obaidi & I found this incredible email:

http://www.wanniski.com/PrintPage.asp?TextID=2855

(snip)...Due to the absence in Iraq (with the exception of the Kurdish area) of functional communication systems with the outside World, our party headquarter in Baghdad tried to send me a fully comprehensive and detailed report by fax from Al-Sulaymaniyah (a Kurdish area). However, by crossing to the Kurdish area, the Kurdish “Peshmarga” searched the person carrying that report which was found with him and confiscated. According, he was handed over to the American troops where he was arrested and no one knows yet of his whereabouts.

This incident clearly indicates that the US Army does not want the truth of the civilian casualties made public.

We want the whole World knows the reality behind what misery was inflicted on our people during this aggression, not to mention the 14 years of economic embargo.

We believe that our people, like all the people of the World, deserve to live decently and without any more oppression. But what we see in Iraq since its occupation was nothing but more oppression and more humiliation, and this time by the aggressors.

The appointment by the American Administrator to Iraq of what is known as “Iraq's interim governing council” is another slap on the face of the Iraqi people, who genuinely believe that this “Council” is nothing less than another “Vichy Government” similar to the one appointed by the Nazis in France. Also, the biggest lethal mistake committed by the American Administrator was to dissolve the Iraqi Army, and other government personnel leaving Iraq without any efficient technocratic power.

What we and the majority of the Iraqis were looking for was an Interim Council appointed by the Iraqis and not by the occupier. We also believe that what was brought by the occupier will not serve the Iraqis, but the occupier and its interests. After four months of the fall of Saddam’s regime, and following the continued volatile situation in Iraq, and the lack of the basic needs of the Iraqi people, Iraqis are talking now about what President Nasser of Egypt said: “what was taken by force must be retrieved by force”.

If Iraq will not be handed over soon to the real patriotic Iraqis, a black page will be written again in the history of America and its allies in Iraq. (end snip)

My summation: We're being left in the dark about what's really going on in Iraq. In the absence of facts, we speculate - and some us speculate the worst. Then, as the facts trickle in, little-by-little - they verify the worst of our horrors each and every time. And in the midst of all the madness, here is Dr. al-Obaidi, risking his life to get to the truth. I'm going to try to contact him and freelance an article on him.

THANKS for the Lead!

[Vadem]

10. You're very welcome, Rucky!

Yep, the truth is being withheld from us; maybe that is why nitwit's numbers are still so high, since the majority of the American people, whose only access to the news is cable or network, unlike us DUers, have no idea what is really going on!

[Vadem]

11. Wolfowitz, today, before the Armed Services

Committee, was bragging about the numbers of Iraqi police and army that had been reinstated, something like 50,000 Iraqi army members and 40,000 police (I can't recall the exact numbers he stated, so don't hold me to them, but it was pretty high), seems to belie the statement below (not that I believe Wolfowitz or anybody in the Administration, for a moment):

"Also, the biggest lethal mistake committed by the American Administrator was to dissolve the Iraqi Army, and other government personnel leaving Iraq without any efficient technocratic power."

The hearing today, which was cut off when the House reconvened, should be rebroadcast tonight on C-Span.