The discrepancies in the reporting of US casualties in the Iraq War.

[greenleaf]

The discrepancies in the reporting of US casualties in the Iraq War by two supposedly reliable sites keeping tally.


For example the Global Security Org at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm
has the total of 153 fatal U.S. casualties for April 2004 whereas the Lunaville site at http://www.lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx
has a total of 140 fatal U.S. casualties for the same month.

Now what worries me is that, at the end of April 2004, I seem to recall that the number being reported by the Gobal Security Org site was 157. How much are the casualty figures being fudged?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Corrections and definintions

This isn't too far out of line for correcting casualty reports.

Bigger disrepancies may be from counting the injured as casualties.

War is a very disorganized business. And, no, I don't doubt that Team Bush can lie its way through anything. It's just that record keeping is a routine problem in combat.

--bkl

[Eloriel]

2. I can't respond to that, but I keep thinking about another fudg they do

If someone is injured in combat, but dies afterward, his/her death isn't attributed to combat operations, and I don't think it's counted in the official numbers (currently over 800 now).

And of course everyone knows that we're keeping more people alive because of the kevlar vests, but the number of wounded, esp. who are losing limbs, eyes, etc., are horrendous.

[greenleaf]

3. When I look

at the Lunaville site more closely I realise that the actual number of U.S. fatalaties is given as 135 (the 140 includes 5 killed coalition allies).
Eighteen is quite a significant difference , since both sites claim to be using the same sources to get their information.