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Special thanks to Mark Herold at the University of New Hampshire,
for information on Afghan casualties.
Thanks also to Cynthia Hills, Al W., Michael, Steven D., AC, and Peter B.
for questions answered and research assistance.
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| Notes about varying casualty counts cited elsewhere: | |
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About much lower death tolls
as reported and syndicated
from Iraq Body Count
From the start of the Iraq war and occupation, an organization called Iraq Body Count (IBC) has offered public counts of the civilian
death toll in Iraq.
Offering their JavaScript box to other websites, the IBC tallies quickly became ubiquitous on the web, and IBC's numbers have come to be seen as "the responsible standard" in death counts. But IBC's methodology delivers numbers that are implausibly low.
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As the cornerstone of its work, IBC counts only Iraq civilian deaths that are reported in newspapers or on television. In a nation ravaged daily by violence, it seems unlikely that every or even most individual civilian casualties would be mentioned in the media.
The staff at IBC claims fluency only in English, and as IBC states, "We have not made use of Arabic or other non English language sources, except where these have been published in English. ... It is possible that our count has excluded some victims as a result."
It's impossible to imagine that many casualties are not being excluded. The principle languages of Iraq are Arabic, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Armenian. English is a fairly common second language in Iraq, but few of that nation's newspapers or newscasts are in English, the only language IBC is reading.
Furthermore, IBC's methodology ignores even English-language media reports of Iraqi civilians' deaths, unless matching reports of the same casualties are published by at least "two independent agencies."
It is difficult to even comprehend the hugeness of the 'blind spots' created by IBC's methodology.
It is estimated that at least 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians were killed in the Vietnam war, but we wonder what the total would be, using IBC's methodology — scouring English-language media accounts written and reported during that war, tallying the number of Vietnamese civilians whose deaths were mentioned, but excluding any deaths that were not reported by at least two different English-language media sources.
It is preposterous to suggest that this would yield even a remotely accurate tally of civilians deaths in Vietnam, and similarly, Iraq Body Count's methodology leaves many dead Iraqis' bodies un-counted. Its "maximum civilian deaths" is lower than numbers we've seen from any other organization, except for the optimistic estimates from Iraq's Ministry of Health.
Yet IBC's undercount is also -- by far -- the most commonly cited casualty figure in mainstream media. Even President Bush seemed to cite IBC's numbers, when asked in December 2005 how many Iraqis had lost their lives in this war and occupation.
For a long time, perhaps too long, we didn't question or impugn the motives of the Iraq Body Count project. Even after receiving a few rude emails from IBC, we maintained for another year that their numbers were wrong but their intent must be honorable.
Sadly, we've given up on that attempt at politeness. It needs to be said, and said plainly: IBC's number is a lie, and they know it's a lie. As IBC explains at their website:"What we are attempting to provide is a credible compilation of civilian deaths that have been reported by recognized sources. Our maximum therefore refers to reported deaths — which can only be a sample of true deaths [if] one assumes that every civilian death has been reported. It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war."
So the people behind Iraq Body Count understand that their count leaves many of the dead un-counted. They know that their number is misleading, and they know that IBC's numbers are being used by politicians, reporters, and war leaders to provide false comfort for those who want to believe (or want others to believe) that the war and occupation have gone well.
In our opinion, Iraq Body Count is knowingly spreading false information. They're lying -- that's what it amounts to, when they know their numbers are being mis-read and mis-used to minimize ongoing atrocities.
No informed and honest observer should accept IBC's numbers as even approaching a complete or credible count of Iraqi civilians killed.
Unknown News
IBC's response
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About much higher death tolls
as reported at
TBRNews and other sites
Many readers have cited this popular article at TBRNews. It gives voice to a theory we've heard whispered since even before the attack on Iraq; in its earliest versions, the theory was that many more American soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan than the Pentagon and media had reported. Now it's about American casualties from Iraq.
In a nutshell, the theory is that the toll of American military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan includes only military deaths where the moment of death is in Iraq or Afghanistan -- but ignores thousands of American service members whose deaths occurred in military hospitals in other countries, after they were injured in Iraq or Afghanistan and evacuated out of country.
It's not an unreasonable suspicion, and it's actually in line with the way the military is under-reporting the number of injuries among US troops in Iraq. And certainly, high-ranking officials in the Bush administration have told so many lies, lying should be seen as the administration's official policy.
But this is one matter (perhaps the only matter) they can't plausibly lie about, and we don't believe the military is under-reporting American deaths in Iraq.
First and most pertinent, the US Department of Defense has announced numerous deaths of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines at hospitals in Landstuhl, Germany, or at hospitals in Kuwait or in America, from injuries sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read for yourself, press releases announcing the sad deaths of David M. Kirchhoff, William D. Chaney, Bradley C. Fox, Tyler D. Prewitt. If you simply go through the Pentagon press releases, you'll find numerous other deaths outside Iraq and Afghanistan, included in the count of military casualties.
There could be several, or even several dozen American soldiers who have been killed in these wars but are not on the official DoD tally, due to oversight, errors, secrecy about their missions, or even an official policy that discounts certain American military deaths. But the number probably can't be in the hundreds, and certainly can't be in the thousands -- because American military deaths are never an abstract number.
Behind every number in the official DoD tally of Americans killed, there's an American name remembered, a American life sadly cut short, and grieving American friends and family who will never forget the loved one lost. And let there be no doubt,
Americans
really
are
paying
quite
close
attention.
When Americans visit the Vietnam Memorial, they look for their dead uncle's name, their father, their friends, because they knew people who died in that war. If their names weren't there -- as has happened with a small number of overlooked American deaths from the Vietnam war -- the friends and families complain, and the missing names are added.
If thousands of American dead from these Middle East wars had been forgotten, not included in the ongoing tally of grief, their names not engraved on the eventual memorial, imagine how furious those friends and families would be -- and how newsworthy. There would be loud, angry, headline-making protests from the parents, wives, husbands, siblings, and friends of the dead, demanding that their sacrifice be honored and remembered.
Where are these people, understandably angry that their loved ones' deaths have been ignored? Where are the friends' and families' letters to the editor, their interviews on local newscasts, their protest marches, their makeshift memorials?
It defies credibility, when no American's friends and family have made a ruckus. Until we hear from the neighbors and loved ones of the dead, we don't believe there's a cover-up.
We're certain that TBRNews has their heart in the right place, but we're also certain they're dead wrong.
Unknown News | |
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US and coalition authorities rarely provide any public estimates of Afghan or Iraqi troop or civilian casualties or injuries. In this absence of official data, we present the latest and lowest credible estimates we've found. Where a range is estimated (for example, 2,500-4,000), the lower figure is always cited.
. Afghan troop deaths based on unpublished November 2003 estimate (8,000) by Mark Herold, Ph.D at the University of New Hampshire, augmented by Dr. Herold's tracking of media reports since. See Dr. Herold's website for more information.
. Afghan civilian deaths based on estimate and tracking by Dr. Herold: 3,073 through May 2003, augmented from media accounts since then, as listed at Dr Herold's website. Deaths since Dr Herold's latest update (July 2004) are not included.
. US military deaths in Afghanistan are announced by US Department of Defense and CENTCOM. Coalition deaths in Afghanistan are not officially tallied by any government agency we're aware of, but are being tracked by the good folks at Wikipedia:
As of July 4, 2007, there have been 558 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF): 342 American, 66 Canadian, 64 British, 21 German, 21 Spanish, 9 French, 9 Italian, 9 Dutch, 4 Danish, 4 Romanian, 2 Estonian, 2 Swedish, 1 Australian, 1 Czech, 1 Finnish, 1 Norwegian, 1 Portuguese, and 1 South Korean. ...
In addition to these deaths, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from Afghanistan were killed May 26, 2003 when their plane crashed in Turkey.
. To the best of our knowledge, no organization is tracking the total number of US and coalition civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan. If you know a reliable source for this information, please contact us at the email address below.
. Iraqi troop deaths based on estimate (30,000) by US Gen. Tommy Franks, cited by the Washington Post on Oct. 23, 2003. No estimate has been made publicly since that time.
. Estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths is based on this study [pdf], published in Britain's most respected medical journal The Lancet in October 2006. The study concluded that 654,965 (at least 392,979 and as many as 942,636) Iraqi civilians had been killed in the occupation, in addition to deaths expected from Iraq's normal death rate.US authorities, including President Bush himself, have loudly complained that the study is based on "flawed methodology" and "pretty well discredited," but as often happens when Bush speaks, that's simply untrue. The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University, used standard, widely accepted, peer-reviewed scientific methodology. Explained very briefly, Iraqi respondants in numerous randomly selected locations were asked about recent deaths in their households, and family members were able to show a death certificate to document 80% of the deaths they described. Results from these interviews were extrapolated nationwide, the same way political opinion polls extrapolate a few hundred interviews to reflect nationwide opinions. It's the same method used by the US Centers for Disease Control to estimate deaths from disease outbreak anywhere in the world, the same method routinely trusted by the US and UK when counting deaths from warfare, civil unrest, or other situations anywhere in the world.
Based on the study's estimate of 654,965 deaths occurring over the first 40 months of occupation, we have extended this rate of civilian deaths (16,374 deaths per month) over subsequent months of the occupation since the study was published. Of course, we will adjust this figure when more accurate or credible information becomes available.
. US and coalition military deaths and US military injuries in Iraq are announced by US Department of Defense and CENTCOM, and tracked by the good folks at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Our heading "seriously injured" reflects DoD listing of injuries described as "Wounded in action, [did] not return to duty within 72 hours," and excludes injuries wherein troops return to duty within 72 hours.The officially-announced number of US injuries is deceptive, however, because the US military does not include in its figures service members who are evacuated "from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs." This would leave out, for example, soldiers sickened by radiation or injured in transport accidents.
According to this article by Salon reporter Mark Benjamin, an additional 25,289 service members had been evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses, but not included in the official numbers. Based on Salon's article, dated December 2005 and including injuries through the first 34 months of occupation, we have extrapolated this rate of un-reported military injuries (743 injuries per month) over subsequent months of the extended occupation. Of course, we will adjust this figure when more accurate or credible information becomes available.
Coalition injuries are not tracked, and posted number reflects an estimate, per ratios explained below.
. US and coalition civilian deaths in Iraq are tracked by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.
Where no credible data on serious injuries to citizens or troops has been made public, our rough estimate uses a conservative, historically-based ratio of 3:1 (serious injuries to fatalities) for troops, 1.8:1 for civilians.
Deaths and injuries included are generally only those resulting directly from military actions -- bombs, missiles, bullets, etc. Civilians' deaths and injuries from the chaos of Afghan and Iraqi day-to-day life after the invasions, from disease, from malnutrition, from depleted uranium, from post-traumatic stress disorder, and other incidental effects of warfare are not included.
Numbers are updated often, so if you find more recent or more credible numbers, please let us know. Our email address is unknownnews at inbox.com.
Unknown News
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