United Press International / El Diario – 2005-07-13 23:32:51
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?storyid=20050712-122153-5519r
128,000 Iraqi Civilian Casualties
United Press International
(July 12, 2005) — An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the ‘Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-‘Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.
‘Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country’s provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.
The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa’im. ‘Iraqiyun’s figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies’ database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003.
No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do “body counts.” The Washington Post on July 12 reported that US military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.
Survey Finds Iraq Casualties Are Double the Official Figures
Jesus Dávila / El Diario
Translated from Spanish by Carolina Gonzalez
http://www.coastalpost.com/05/07/03a_.html
(July 2005) — Official US government reports on soldiers under US command killed in Iraq are so fragmented that they account for less than half of the total number, according to information uncovered as part of an inquiry by the Government of Puerto Rico regarding the total number of Puerto Rican war casualties.
This analysis was confirmed by El Diario/La Prensa’s review of multiple documents, including official reports issued by the US Department of Defense, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior and more than 230 battlefront reports, which reveal that more than 4,076 troops under US command have been killed in 799 days of battle.
This information contrasts markedly with the limited information on casualties generally issued by US military authorities, which focus only on US uniformed troops. These total 1,649.
Military affairs expert José Rodríguez Beruff from the University of Puerto Rico said that the figures showing more than 4,000 dead indicate that, far from winning the war in Iraq, “what is happening is that the troops are being worn down.” He said that traditional theorists calculate that for an armed invading force to win a guerrilla war, its casualties should be one to ten of its enemy’s. In this case, that would require 40,000 casualties among the insurgents.
In addition, Rodr’guez Reduff warned that the reports should be reviewed on an ongoing basis, as he suspects that the number of casualties is even higher.
Calculations are even more difficult when it comes to the wounded, which US authorities number at more than 12,600, and medical discharges — those maimed or suffering from physical and mental injuries — about whom only partial reports can be obtained. In this category, large discrepancies in counts have been publicized by news outlets such as the national German Press Agency (DPA), which ran a story reporting on US Army documents putting the number of US soldiers with war-related mental ailments at 100,000.
That issue is more controversial. The Argentine press agency Argenpress reported about 17,000 unreported cases of war-related mental illness. But no matter the scenario, the numbers of wounded and medical discharges are larger than those officially announced, as is the case with casualties.
The figures came to light in the course of an ongoing investigation that El Diario/La Prensa is making on the number of Puerto Rican and Hispanic casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That inquiry prompted Congressman José Serrano (D-NY) and Anábal Acevedo Vilá, then Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, to request a full casualty report, which yielded a partial list with 200 Puerto Rican losses, including casualties, wounded and medical discharges.
After his election as Governor, Acevedo Vilá renewed his request to the Department of Defense for a total and specific accounting, but as of press time he had yet to receive an answer.
According to documents reviewed by this paper, in addition to the 1,649 fatalities among US uniformed troops, there were 88 from Great Britain, 92 from other coalition member countries, 238 reported by private contractors, and at least 2,000 from members of the Iraqi Army. The biggest defect in published counts is the missing casualties among Iraqi troops under command of the occupying forces.
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