IRAQ: Death Toll 'Above Highest Estimates'

[nosmokes]

I's funny how the Pentagon sticks w/ their assertion they're not keeping any sort of count of enemy dead or *collateral damage.*I just watched a press conference by a Major General in Iraq and keeping in line w/ the military's love of minutiae and details the dude was citing figures almost down to the number of bullets fired at certain recent relatively engagements. I find it mind boggling and rather disingenuous to say that the military doesn't have some sort of fairly accurate 'enemy body count' and it stretches even further the already paper thin credibility of the Pentagon.
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original-ips

IRAQ: Death Toll 'Above Highest Estimates'
By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

BAQUBA, Jun 2 (IPS) - The real number of the dead is far higher than even the highest declared in death tolls, many Iraqis say.

A study by doctors from the Johns Hopkins School of Health in conjunction with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in Baghdad, published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October 2006, estimated the number of excess deaths as a result of the occupation at above 655,000.

Just Foreign Policy, an independent organisation "dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy" offered an updated total of 1,213,716 at the time of this writing.

On Sep. 14, 2007, Opinion Research Business (ORB), an independent polling agency located in London, produced a figure of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the invasion.

These estimates are above any official figures from Iraq, but they do consider the reported official figures.

Iraqis believe that the authorities are hiding these figures. "The U.S. military benefits from hiding the real totals," said a political analyst who declined to give his name because of the atmosphere of fear within Iraq. "And the Iraqi government is a puppet of the Americans, so their figures are ridiculously low as well."

The report published in The Lancet did not take into account many circumstances of death, say residents in Baquba, capital of Diyala province 40km north of capital Baghdad.

"All people know that a large number of bodies are dropped into the Diyala river," said a local resident. "I was kidnapped and taken to a village called Huwaider, which is completely Shia and located on the Diyala River. Sunnis there are killed and dropped in the river by militiamen, but I was freed by the U.S Army.

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complete article here

[seemslikeadream]

1. Is it genocide yet?

[malaise]

4. Yuh think?

To the Hague!

[Selatius]

2. 1.2 million. In Viet Nam, estimates ranged between 2 to 3 million civilian deaths, most in the South

Another 5 years of this war, and we're looking at matching Viet Nam in terms of numbers of civilians killed in Iraq.

[Rex]

3. We Americans are masters at killing people.

I think it is the one thing we do that rivals all other countries.

[bill for obama]

8. We pretend we are that "good " -

Maybe- probably - theoretically we are or could be.

But we have never and won't push that envelope - unless faced with immediate threat to our homes.

[Rex]

12. I mean our military industrial complex.

[bill for obama]

13. I understand what you mean.

The military industrial complex - never got shot at either. SO I take them with a BIG grain of salt.

[Rex]

15. Not me, I take the Pentagon very seriously.

Every few minutes, someone else dies because of the Pentagon's agenda to help rich people get richer. Never take someone who is in the business of killing with a BIG grain of salt, IMO.

[bill for obama]

16. That makes one of us.

They aren't in the business of killing - they are in the business of getting the biggest appropriation - not the same thing.

It is just big business to them.

[Rex]

20. Yeah killing is just business to them.

Not good.

[Pavulon]

10. Actually we are but children in the land of mass killings

stalin, hitler, imperial japan killed on a magnitude that is staggering. That sentence probably encompasses 50 million people intentionally killed. Not war, intentional murder.

Not saying we should not accept the Iraq mess but the reality is that we are not intentional killers or the number would be much higher than a 1 or 2 million.

[bill for obama]

17. We can be intentional killers - if we are threatened -

SO your point is good.

Besides everyone here must understand - if we just wanted to kill for the sake of killing - we can kill every living thing in the entire world in about 45 minutes. Everything.

[JackRiddler]

19. Wow. Just wow. Now 1 or 2 million - what's the diff - just peanuts to you.

[bill for obama]

5. I suggest - just probabilites -

A ten to one kill ratio was always ideal. 4000 of our kids die - probably, but for incredible medical efforts, half the wounded would have died (in any other war).

(35000 * .5) + 4000 - *10 = we probably killed about 215,000 Iraqis.

And yeah - I bet they know the real number!

[Pavulon]

6. Why these numbers make smart people look bad

I have heard the 1 million or 2 million number bounced around. That is 1% of the ENTIRE population. That is not plausible.

The sample with an n of approx 800 or 1800 sited earlier could in no way be properly stratified. Even if it was a perfect reflection of the population it was not verified.

84,218 – 91,889 is an accepted number from IBC. Double it and you are still way short of the unrealistic numbers.

[bill for obama]

7. You sir - understand statistics.

Hats off. And a good post.

[Pavulon]

9. Thanks. Bad numbers hide the real issue

even if it were 5000 people killed the Iraq war was not properly presented to the American people. Information was not properly distributed to the agencies that need it and gross errors were made. The idiots that planned it failed to put reality in front of their idealogy and it cost lives, lots of them.

The war did not serve US interest. Even if we stay until Iraq is capable of standalone rule and control of its borders I don't see the advantage to us.

Even if Iraq stabilizes, becomes an ally, and secular state like turkey the process to achieve this was shabby on so many levels.

[bill for obama]

11. Those numbers thrown around - bother me -

You know - fringes on the left may say a million people - and you just cringe and wait for the retort - oh - its only 100,000 people - which they will certainly express as - "You guys are 90+ % wrong"

100,000 people (maybe 200,000) - god - that is a whole city!!!

It is like we set ourselves up to fail - and that has to stop.

You made a good post - and I appreciate that!

[tuckessee]

22. It appears your kill ratio is based on combatants only.

Completely ignoring civilians. Your numbers look like an official "body count" without collateral damage.

Using your BS equation the US only killed 680,000 or so total (combatants & non-combatants) in Vietnam. Everyone knows that garbage.

Now please redo your spin but include civilians.

[spanone]

14. democracy is something to behold

[bill for obama]

18. It is - and every once in a while - we really have to fight for it!

[ConsAreLiars]

21. The contortions those who support the bloodletting go through to deny the facts are amazing.

Pinheads claiming that they know more about research methodology and statistical analysis than the researchers at Johns Hopkins and the editors at the most prestigious and respected medical research journals.

It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

And too many other lame half-assed arguments against acknowledging the raw facts of the mass murder in Iraq to even bother repeating. Friends of the killers claiming that that the murderers were only guilty of 1/10th of the crimes they are being charged with, as if that is a defense.

[Octafish]

23. I want my country back from these mass murderers.

George Walker Bush is a mass murderer and warmonger.
His father, George Herbert Walker Bush is a mass murderer and warmonger.
His grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush was a guy who, at the very least, did business with a mass murderer and warmonger.

And from what I can see, this current dynasty, this regime, this junta started on November 22, 1963.