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July 25, 2008 11:16:45 AM CDT

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Iraqi Death Toll Uncountable

Posted Mar 19, 08 10:49 AM CDT in World 

(Newser) – "We don't do body counts," an American general notoriously said not long after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Five years later, there is no credible count of civilian deaths in the Iraq war, the Guardian reports in a look at the wildly different estimates that have been promoted—ranging from under 100,000 to well over a million—and how they're put together.

Some counts have used morgue and hospital records; four household surveys have been done, collecting names of the dead and extrapolating to the population as a whole. Counters have been quick to attack each other's methodology, and politicians to seize the figure that suits their purposes. The Guardian calls it "the worst humanitarian catastrophe in today's world," but still a mystery as to its real scope.

Source Guardian (UK)

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1920 Revolution Brigades members stand over the Iraqi flag-draped coffin of Naseer Salam al Maamouri, their security chief, who was killed with two of his bodyguards in Baquba, December, 2007.   (AP Photo)
Iraqi morgue workers adjust shrouds over the bodies of the dead, after a suicide bombing outside an Iraqi army recruiting center in Baghdad, Iraq in this July 10, 2005 file photo.   (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)
Iraqi volunteers stand behind unidentified bodies wrapped in white sheets in the holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq , on Friday, Sept. 28, 2007.   (AP Photo)
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Iraq  • Iraq war  • Iraq death toll  • civilian casualties  • statistics  • Tommy Franks


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