Nearly 40,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led invasion. It is a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported yesterday.
The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.
No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths in the US-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1937.
The new estimate of more than 39,000 was made by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies and published in its latest annual small arms survey.
More is at The Age.
The reality is we will never know the true number of civilians killed, in part because the Bush Administration ordered that such a count NOT be kept.
No comments:
Post a Comment