The number of Iraqis who have died violently since the U.S.-led invasion is many times larger than the U.S. military death toll of 2,000...
The number of Iraqis who have died violently since the U.S.-led invasion is many times larger than the U.S. military death toll of 2,000 in Iraq. In one sign of the enormity of the Iraqi loss, at least 3,870 civilians were killed in the past six months alone, according to an Associated Press count.
One U.S. military spokesman said it is possible the figure for the entire war could be 30,000 Iraqis, which many experts see as a credible estimate. Others suspect the number is far higher, since the chaos in Iraq leaves the potential for many killings to go unreported.
“We may never know the true number of the Iraqi public that has been killed or injured in this war,” said the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan.
Civilians made up more than two-thirds of the Iraqis killed in war-related violence since the country’s first elected government took power on April 28, according to the AP count. The rest were Iraqi security personnel.
Boylan said the U.S. military keeps its own tally of Iraqi dead but does not release it.
But he suggested that an estimate from Iraq Body Count, a British anti-war group that has compiled a death toll based on media reports, appeared credible. The group estimated that from 26,690 to 30,051 Iraqi civilians were killed, or roughly 1,000 per month in the 30 months since the war began.
Some outside experts call that number about right.
Iraq Body Count: www.iraqbodycount.net
Brookings Institution Iraq Index: www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf
Multi-National Force, Iraq: www.mnf-iraq.com
Judith Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq analyst and a senior fellow at National Defense University, said she accepts estimates of 20,000 to 30,000 killed.
Iraq Body Count’s figures include Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces as well as by insurgents and militia. They also include homicides stemming from the breakdown in law and order.
The AP’s count is based on reports from police, hospitals, government officials and eyewitnesses. The death toll includes Iraqi police and military — but not insurgents, victims of ordinary homicides or the nearly 1,000 Shiite pilgrims killed Aug. 21 in a bridge stampede after someone shouted that a suicide bomber was in the crowd.
There is no way of knowing how many deaths go uncounted.
Estimates from other experts who measure overall Iraqi deaths, including insurgents and Iraqi troops, range higher than 30,000.
Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution who has closely followed the war’s casualties, said an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Iraqis have been killed per month, about half of them insurgents. Exacerbating the carnage is the Iraqi crime rate, now the highest in the Middle East, with about 10,000 homicides a year that would not have happened without the invasion, he said.
The total of Iraqi deaths — including insurgents — from all manner of war-related violence could run as high as 70,000, said O’Hanlon, who teaches a course at Columbia University on estimating war casualties.
As high as it is, the Iraqi death rate so far is much lower than that of the Vietnamese during the 1954-1976 Vietnam War, when about 1.1 million Vietnamese fighters and some 2 million civilians were killed — a rough average of 12,000 per month.
The Pentagon made it clear from the start of the Iraq invasion that it would not be counting Iraqi bodies.
