US Iraq war dead could be as high as 6,210 --anybody confirm this?--

[drummer55]

U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals are not counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005.

Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources. Ed

http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=40295

[rodeodance]

1. this report has been circulating for a month or so that I know of.

[UL_Approved]

2. This really makes for some future backlash

I've been asking all along about how many people have died in Iraq to date. The fact that the Pentagon is not reporting this stuff is bad. This is bad for the future of our military. This is bad for the future of our country. Once this gets out, what will the U.S. government do to explain the casualty counts that suddenly increased by these factors?

We need good figures, but how does one find them in times of mutual deceit?

[cliss]

7. I'm so glad you brought this up, UL.

I've been wondering the same thing myself. Every once in a while, you'll see a thread that hints to the same thing: there have been many more deaths than we know of.

I read somewhere that the Pentagon is loath to publish figures of casualties, because American patience will run out in direct correlation to the numbers of deaths.

Also, I read that deaths are only counted if they happen in Iraq. If the troop dies at the hospital in Germany, it's not counted.

So how can they hide almost 5,000 extra deaths? First of all, they know they have power in numbers. By this I mean, we don't know all the families personally, so we can't keep track of the deaths in the aggregate.

I've even read that some troops don't have families. The Pentagon would keep track of this, and keep it secret. Also, there may be Hispanics with similar-sounding names, and they keep those hidden.

Our ONE advantage would be local papers. They would publish the names of the deceased. It's pretty hard to keep something like that from a smaller community.

I suggest we keep a list and start expanding to it. Name, rank, serial number, etc.

I'll be money the list is going to be big.

[bush_is_wacko]

9. Blame them on the IRAN war! They think they can hide this until

we have been there for a while. They may even produce another disaster to explain them away. It appears as if they are gearing up to do that now.

I am beginning to believe the prediction that bushhitler will do this shortly before his term is up so that he can attempt to convince the country Congress has asked him to stay on for another four years. You know Nixon suggested changing the term limit thing before his scandal made it public, right?

[UL_Approved]

13. The idea was floated even heavier for Reagan

The idea is not news to me. This is the kind of crap that we can expect from the GOP. It really is.

After the GOP became the party of the Dixiecrats, it managed to get the industrial cronies, NAZI sympathizers, AND the Southern racist contingency (which were a part of the NAZI movement, so to speak) on one ticket.

The Democratic party is now a few intellectuals who know what is right, what needs to be done, but really don't have the influence or the skills to deal with this country as a whole. We desperately need to relate to the average person. And I'm not talking about rhetoric or handouts, I'm talking about real relation.

And this comes back on topic through what I will say next. If we want Democrats elected, we need to study what actually worked. And this comes down to looking at examples of where the Democratic party made gains.

Most people know that the GOP isn't great. Some profit from it, some accept it, while a few fight it.

I have floated the idea on various threads that the shrub will try to disband the congress after declaring martial law. I have also wondered about the new law that was put in as a rider on a bill. It states that police and other authorities have TOTAL control and power to do what they want in the name of homeland security. I seriously have considered the possibility of internment camps, with the death camp aspect to boot. I don't say this lightly, and I really, really hope I'm right.

Our only hope is to find good statesmen who can remove the Neo-Con blight on this country. We really have been convinced to do anything for our leader, no matter how wrong. But some break the trend. And the best example that I can show is the increase in DU membership. Whenever you are on the lobby/latest thread page, look at the members. We were at about 64500 last week. And this keeps growing, even in the middle of the night. Since the Gannon/Guckert thing, we have had huge inflows of registered users.

The only thing left to do is do something. The anger and dissent are there. We just need a leader, or an initiative. Everything from the torture facilities around the world to the crashed companies like Enron to the horribly under counted death totals will add up. The people in this country won't all go along with the AWOL chimpanzee. And having our history behind us, I hope that this is most people.

[alcuno]

3. Untrue.

If you go to http://icasualties.org you will find that they are keeping track of American military personnel who have died because of Iraq. There are a very few who have died in hospitals in Germany, Kuwait, or the US and that is a credit to the excellent medical care and personnel involved. If 4500 names were missing from the DoD's own website, I think we'd hear about it. Also, the people at icasualties link local stories with the official reports.

The one thing that I'm unclear about is how "special forces" deaths are reported. I don't think that there have been 4500.

[mistertrickster]

4. Right, I think this administration is perfectly capable of lying about

the true numbers of casulties, but I don't think they could get away with only reporting 1/3rd of the true numbers.

The families of killed soldiers would be making a hue and cry over their child or husband not being listed. I haven't heard anything about that.

Reportage hasn't gotten to the Nazi state yet--somebody out there would be getting the word out if this were happening.

I wish people would do the research and THEN announce the results instead of the other way around.

Just because we may want to catch Bush Team in yet another lie doesn't mean we should grab on to straws in the Internet wind. That's what the FReeps do--exhibit A, Swift Boat Liars.

On edit--that's not to say it's not worth a post. I'm just not believing anything that doesn't have evidence.

[Roland99]

6. Yeah...the families would be all over this if it were true.

[bloom]

11. How would the families know?

Seems like they would have no more of a way to keep track of everyone than we do.

[mistertrickster]

12. Well, the DoD listed all the names of the dead. If their family member

wasn't listed, they'd know. That's how people are calculating the number dead, btw, by counting the names.

[clem_c_rock]

19. Well - it's well documented they did it in Vietnam

But you know after 20 consecutive lies sheep are always ready and willing to believe the 21st story is the truth.

[UL_Approved]

14. Did you check the way that icasualties.org gets these figures?

icasualties.org looks at CNN, CENTCOM, Army Times, AP, and other "official" news sources.

The whole point of this thread is that these sources are not getting access to or are not reporting the total numbers dead.

What sense does it make to depend upon sources of information that we don't trust in order to back up our claims? If these news stories get scrubbed in Iraq, how would we know the total figures anyway? And do you think that there is one journalist for EVERY combat unit over there? Could it be possible that the figures that aren't reported are the ones where no press is around to monitor?

The icasualties.com site is just a tally of "official" figures. They fill the void where the U.S. DoD fails to step in. But they are just as blind to field work as we are. They still only know what the DoD will let through the media.

[HereSince1628]

5. I know that this is just an anecdote, but

to qualify it, it came from an adult immediate family member of the serviceman who is otherwise an avid Bush supporter.

According to the family member, an air-force load master originally from SE Wisconsin was permanently released from duty and separated from the service during the holiday season for medical (mental health) reasons that were aggrevated by having to load and fly with the dead out of Iraq and Germany.

The serviceman claims, as told to me by a family member, that the number of actual dead were many more than number actually reported.

1) Interesting that this serviceman did a job that would actually put him in a position to have an idea of the number of dead and wounded being transported and

2) Its another case of the "mental illness" charge being used to discredit someone with serious objections.

[smoogatz]

8. Interesting

There was another story several months ago from a Russian news source claiming a similar undercount of US deaths in Iraq. According to that story, only soldiers who were US citizens were included in the count--the "real" number at the time was supposedly around 3,000. I doubt that either of these stories is true. But there is underreporting, obviously--nobody's counting dead American "civilian contractors," who make up the 2nd largest fighting force in Iraq. That number could be pretty high--certainly in the hundreds.

[bush_is_wacko]

10. I also read a story that claimed some military had been "temporarily"

buried in mass graves in black body bags a while back and that someone had found "several" grave sites that fit this bill.

The bodies in them were too "fresh" to have been from the Saddam era and didn't appear to be of Arab ancestry. They had no clothing to indicate if they were soldiers.

I don't think I saved it, but it wasn't that long ago. I DO think there is a SERIOUS effort to UNDER REPORT casualties.

Reporters rarely. if ever, travel outside their hotels and they are relying on Arab runners to tell them what is going on because they are completely targeted.

[Cadence]

15. If I wanted to link

to this article from my website what's the best link to use?

[TWiley]

16. This story would make sense.

They only report those who died on the day it happened. I have never heard them update their statistics to include those who died later as a result of their injuries.

Technically, they were not "killed" in action, they were only "wounded" in action.

[drummer55]

20. hmmmm that makes some degree of sense

you can follow it by this site

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Casualty_Report.asp?CasualtyReport=20050230.txt

to get the the latest updates just change the last digit before .txt

they list dead and wounded but never anybody who dies after being wounded.

[gulfcoastliberal]

17. Army is already having recruiting problems. If the real facts got out,

they'd have to start a draft beacuse no one would voluntarily enlist.

[No Exit]

18. Actually that would make it 7600, going on 7800. Believable. n/t