US Hasn't Been Counting All the Iraqi Dead - to keep figures down

[leftyladyfrommo]

and make it look like the latest offenseive has been more effective than it really was.

I just read this in the KC Star this morning. Only certain kinds of ftalities are counted - people found dead over nite and those shot, I think. All the others killed by roadside bombs are just left out.

I noticed this because someone yesterday brought up this very fact - that we could not be sure the figures of the dead were accurate. And he was right. They aren't accurate.

Probably not much that we get is really accurate.

I'm trying to find a link. I think this story is over on Raw Story this morning but the link is so long I can't transfer it. Still looking.

[Red Right and BLUE]

1. The thought crossed my mind many times.

Thank you for checking into this.

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. The story is over on Raw Story - from McClatchy writers

they have been excluding car bombs and motar attacks. And that is where most of the deaths have occurred - deaths in the highest numbers anyway.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. Is this the article?

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/iraq/15475900.htm

U.S. defends Iraq count
Limiting the numbers better reflects Baghdad violence, officials say.
By MARK BRUNSWICK and ZAINEB OBEID
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq | U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren’t counting scores killed in car bombings and mortar attacks.

In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.

That has allowed U.S. officials to say that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.

It eliminates from tabulation huge numbers of people whose deaths are certainly part of the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
More...

Sounds right, and it's exactly what one would expect from them. :mad:

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. Yes - that's it - Thanks.

One sure thing about this adm. If they say it is true it is not. If they say its false then you can believe its true.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. Thank you, for drawing my attention to it

:)

[bananas]

8. LBN: U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2501688

[jellybeancurse]

5. If you read any of Robert Fisk's reporting

from Baghdad its pretty shocking. He reports that the Iraqi morgues are just filling up to the brim and beyond. He said by morning it was 9 dead, by lunch 26 and on and on. People floating up through the sewers, left in garbage dumps. He even said that it has been official US policy even since the CPA was there that no "western journalists" be allowed to see the computers that tally all the dead and the reasons of death.

It is truly horrifying and shocking, needless to say many of these people are found blindfolded with their hands behind their backs.

[leftyladyfrommo]

6. Oh, I know. Kidnapped and tortured and shot.

It is just awful.

[dbt]

9. Goodness me! What else could our government be keeping from us???

:rofl:
dbt
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