Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq

[Barrett808]

Source: Washington Post

Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 24, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD, May 23 -- More than three months into a U.S.-Iraqi security offensive designed to curtail sectarian violence in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, Health Ministry statistics show that such killings are rising again.

From the beginning of May until Tuesday, 321 unidentified corpses, many dumped and showing signs of torture and execution, have been found across the Iraqi capital, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The data showed that the same number of bodies were found in all of January, the month before the launch of the Baghdad security plan.

Such killings are a signature practice of Shiite militias, although Sunni insurgents are also known to execute victims. The number of found bodies is a key indicator of the level of sectarian violence, but the statistics also include some who died from causes unrelated to the political situation.

Weeks after the security plan was launched in mid-February, Bush administration and U.S. military officials began citing a decline in sectarian violence as evidence of the plan's effectiveness. Although that trend appears to have reversed, the unidentified corpses being collected this year remain far fewer than those found during the peak periods of sectarian strife last year.

Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the Iraqi commander overseeing the security plan, acknowledged in an interview that the number of unidentified corpses is rising and said there has been a spike in sectarian assaults by Shiite militias, especially elements of the Mahdi Army, the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301780.html?hpid=topnews

[Bozita]

1. Body count numbers are tough to massage ... especially when the bodies are in a morgue

Good thing we no longer count suicide bombings.

Didn't Joe Stalin say something like "what really counts is who does the counting"?

[LynnTheDem]

2. bUsh needs to ES KAH LATE the surging surge.

Yet again.

It worked so well in Vietnam.

It'll work as well in Vietraq.

[sabra]

3. k & r

:kick:

[saigon68]

4. BUT BUT "FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH" shouted the AWOL CHIMPANZEE

LOL