Nbadan
09-22-2004, 06:18 AM
The War's Toll on Iraqi Civilians
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 21, 2004; 9:01 AM
....While American journalists can say, correctly, that definitive statistics on civilian casualties are hard to come by, the true number is certainly a multiple of U.S. casualties, according to Human Rights Watch. In a 2003 study, the New York-based watchdog group said "thousands" of Iraqi civilians had been killed or wounded in the three weeks between the invasion and the fall of Baghdad.
Human Rights Watch cited two other attempts to quantify the dead. The Los Angeles Times did a survey of 27 hospitals in the Baghdad area after the U.S. invasion and found that at least 1,700 civilians died. In June 2003, the Associated Press canvassed 60 of Iraq's 124 hospitals and calculated that at least 3,420 civilians died in the first months of the war. AP described the count as "fragmentary" and said, "the complete toll -- if it is ever tallied -- is sure to be significantly higher."
Since then, other figures have been floated. Commentators for the Jordan Times and the Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon, have cited an estimate of 30,000 deaths. That is the figure disseminated by the Iraqi Human Rights Organization, an independent group in Baghdad.
A more conservative figure comes from Iraqbodycount.net, a British Web site that compiles media reports on Iraqi civilian deaths. Based on such reporting, the site says there have been a minimum of 12,778 civilian deaths in Iraq and a maximum of 14,820....
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....no matter which news sources you read or how you play with the numbers, the consensus of international commentators is that the U.S. military may have replaced Saddam Hussein as the biggest threat to Iraqi civilians.
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37968-2004Sep21.html)
Well, thats one way to liberate the Iraqis I guess.
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 21, 2004; 9:01 AM
....While American journalists can say, correctly, that definitive statistics on civilian casualties are hard to come by, the true number is certainly a multiple of U.S. casualties, according to Human Rights Watch. In a 2003 study, the New York-based watchdog group said "thousands" of Iraqi civilians had been killed or wounded in the three weeks between the invasion and the fall of Baghdad.
Human Rights Watch cited two other attempts to quantify the dead. The Los Angeles Times did a survey of 27 hospitals in the Baghdad area after the U.S. invasion and found that at least 1,700 civilians died. In June 2003, the Associated Press canvassed 60 of Iraq's 124 hospitals and calculated that at least 3,420 civilians died in the first months of the war. AP described the count as "fragmentary" and said, "the complete toll -- if it is ever tallied -- is sure to be significantly higher."
Since then, other figures have been floated. Commentators for the Jordan Times and the Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon, have cited an estimate of 30,000 deaths. That is the figure disseminated by the Iraqi Human Rights Organization, an independent group in Baghdad.
A more conservative figure comes from Iraqbodycount.net, a British Web site that compiles media reports on Iraqi civilian deaths. Based on such reporting, the site says there have been a minimum of 12,778 civilian deaths in Iraq and a maximum of 14,820....
***
....no matter which news sources you read or how you play with the numbers, the consensus of international commentators is that the U.S. military may have replaced Saddam Hussein as the biggest threat to Iraqi civilians.
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37968-2004Sep21.html)
Well, thats one way to liberate the Iraqis I guess.