Is the US death toll in Iraq being fudged?

[KingFlorez]

I started thinking about this and I wondered if they are only counting soldiers who die on the ground and not the ones who die in hospitals or en route to hospitals. It sounds crazy, but this administration will do almost anything.

[CaliTeacher]

1. What about Iraqi death count?

They don't even make an effort to calculate that. Disgusting.

[bullimiami]

2. it has been written and conjectured often.

there have been articles supporting the idea and then those either dismissing it out of hand or debunking.

All without proof to show.

At least some deaths at the hospital in germany have been reported, but all?

I dont know. It is possible I suppose.

[Frederik]

3. No

It's been discussed here so many times already. All are counted. I'm sure the admisnistration would have preferred it to be otherwise, but fortunately they can't control that.

[bullimiami]

14. Frederik. For you to say flat out "All are counted" is as foolish to me

as those who say "the actual death toll is 6000 or higher"

I know you dont know. You believe, but it is just the word of the pentagon, administration and media that formed your opinion.
I suggest that none of us know.

[Frederik]

17. But it's highly unlikely

and there is no indication whatsoever that all aren't counted. Of course we can't know for sure, but then it's one of the facts of life that there is very little we can know for sure.

[wakeme2008]

4. This is a repeat of many posts

http://icasualties.org/oif/ is correct as far as anybody knows and lists the place on death. A lot are in Germany hospitals.

[KingFlorez]

7. Okay, that clears it up

I just don't put anything past this administration

[jobycom]

10. Agreed, but keep in mind

that the administration would not onl have to not report deaths, but keep the families of the dead from reporting them. Since a lot of families have condemned Bush for their children's/spouse's/parent's/sibling's deaths, it's unlikely that large numbers of families would keep quiet when they didn't hear their relative's name on the news, or see them in the obits or military rolls or websites that tally these figures.

So it's not just Bush's credibility on this issue. There's also the credibility of a lot of families who have no reason to cover for BushCo.

[jobycom]

8. Do these numbers include contractors/mercenaries? nt.

[Frederik]

18. No

mercenaries aren't counted.

[jobycom]

5. That question keeps popping up and being debunked, but I even

heard Randi Rhodes talking about it yesterday, and I remember Mike Malloy talking about it in the pre-Air America days.

One DU poster is very involved in this, so I'll let her debunk it.

[meppie-meppie not]

6. definitely!

[spooked911]

9. I've heard it both ways-- that they aren't fudged& that they are fudged

The government says about 1800. But we dare not trust that claim because we now know the government lies. There are indications that the government has been "fudging the books" by not counting as killed in action soldiers who die in or on their way to the hospitals. During a recent MSNBC interview of the officer in charge of processing the personal items of dead soldiers, he let slip that his unit alone had processed 3500 such sets of personal items. Other reports from Germany suggest that the US has lost close to 10,000 young men and women in Iraq.

from a site that must not be named

[CWebster]

11. Most probably

Everything else is.

Esoecially when it comes to war--and this isn't even a "legitimate" war by any stretch.

[grumpy old fart]

12. Stop it. Now. It's all been asked and answered ad nauseum

http://icasualties.org/oif/ Has all the info you need.

[CWebster]

15. Sort of like the concentration camps that no one saw?

Funny how these things get an official stamp that becomes the cue that no one should ever challenge.

[grumpy old fart]

16. oh please.

have you been around for the multiple threads on this issue? Aside from the massive holes from a logical standpoint (the necessity of hundreds of silenced relatives/friends) http://icasualties.org/oif/ has addressed their methodology and this very issue.

[TahitiNut]

13. The real travesty is how asymmetrical this "conflict" is.

We're talking about the most powerful military force in the history of the planet invading and occupying a "third-world" country whose defensive capabilities, both military and civil, had been virtually destroyed by a war and 12 years of bombings and sanctions.

Take an amok SWAT team into a 5,000-student high school and see what the casualty count is on either side. If the students are able to inflict any casualties at all it's remarkable.

The fact that 1,740 U.S. troops have been killed is really quite astonishing. It's Bradley Fighting Vehicles against Toyota Pick-up Trucks. It's jet fighters against bottle rockets.

No ... it's perversely in the Pentagon's fascist self-interest to tally the U.S. casualties. "It's a dangerous place." The reason they don't count the Iraqi casualties is obvious: it's a fucking slaughter! I have no doubt that over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed - mostly murdered. A 50-to-1 ratio of casualties is slaughter. Iraq is a human abattoir!