US admits it has counted 26,000 Iraqi dead

[cal04]

The Pentagon has admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq. The figures, slipped into a bar graph in a lengthy report to the US congress this month, show that the daily number of Iraqi casualties has more than doubled in the past 18 months.

The report says that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents, with an estimated 26 casualties a day between January and March of last year, rising to 64 a day in the run up to the referendum on the new constitution. This contradicts the Pentagon's assertion that the security situation in Iraq is improving - and that appearances to the contrary reflect the media's focus on bombings in and around Baghdad.

Previously, the US military has insisted it kept records of the casualties among only its own personnel, and avoided discussion about civilian tolls. It also refuses to release information on the number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded by US forces. Washington and London have regularly doubted independent estimates of the number of Iraqis killed since the 2003 invasion.

Pentagon officials said the report was only a rough estimate and did not distinguish between civilian casualties and members of Iraq's nascent security services killed or wounded in insurgency attacks. "They have begun to realise that when you focus only on the US it gives the impression that the US doesn't care about Iraqis," Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a research group in Washington told The New York Times.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article323498.ece

[NVMojo]

1. I've heard a number close to this before but never officially ...

this is a disgrace ...and truly represents the blood on the hands of the USA ...

[swag]

2. The report alleges 26,000 killed by "insurgents," not by us.

[Luminous Animal]

3. Exactly.

It is an attempt to deflect the casualties we've inflicted on an innocent population by pointing to the "insurgents".

Surely, with our fire power both on the ground an in the air, would have inflicted even more damage on the civilian population.

[jobycom]

4. Killed or WOUNDED. Casualty does not mean dead.

It's even in the article you cite: "The report says that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents"