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Of course trhey keep figures on casualties. They may not be 100% accurate, but they keep them. I wonder what the numbers are for suicide bombers killing civillians? Do they keep numbers on that too?
A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces. Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said the US army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so by the Geneva Conventions.
But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant. She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed.
"These statistics demonstrate that the US military can and does track civilian casualties," she wrote. "Troops on the ground keep these records because they recognise they have a responsibility to review each action taken and that it is in their interest to minimise mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis is a key component of their strategy." Sam Zia-Zarifi, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, the group for which Ms Ruzicka wrote the report, said her discovery "was very important because it allows the victims to start demanding compensation". He added: "At a policy level they have never admitted they keep these figures."
Exactly how many Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last two years is unclear. Iraq Body Count, a group that monitors casualty reports, says at least 17,384 have died. But the group bases its totals only on deaths reported by the media, and says it can therefore only "be a sample" of the total actually killed. Its website says: "It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war."
This is an edited extract of an article written by Marla Ruzicka a week before her death:Independent.co.uk
"She mooned the president," her mother said
Of course trhey keep figures on casualties. They may not be 100% accurate, but they keep them. I wonder what the numbers are for suicide bombers killing civillians? Do they keep numbers on that too?
The point is not the numbers themselves, but the fact that the military denied that they were being tracked. Why would they deny such a thing if not to keep the public from finding out the numbers?
I have not seen anyone deny that there is an offical count going on. There is most likely an unoffical one.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110002024
I get ripped for my sources. Can't you find anyone with an objective view NBADanallah?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Aug22.html
"Ruzicka's organization operates on an annual budget of about $100,000, funded now in large part by the Open Society Ins ute, a George Soros organization, with low-cost rental space provided by Human Rights Watch."
Anyone here know this turds goal? I do.
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