However, one cannot stress enough that these are conservative estimates. It goes without saying that it is impossible to keep accurate numbers in such chaos, but it is equally safe to say that such guesstimates will invariably be low rather than high.

The numbers were already in the hundreds of thousands when Bush and his administration stopped counting because he deemed them irrelevant and inevitable, a simple byproduct of his war for... what?

For every American who snickered at Iraqi propagandists who said America was opening the flood gates to hell, can you imagine a hell worse than Iraq right now? To the Americans who bristle with righteous indignation when Arab terrorists kill a thous...

However, one cannot stress enough that these are conservative estimates. It goes without saying that it is impossible to keep accurate numbers in such chaos, but it is equally safe to say that such guesstimates will invariably be low rather than high.

The numbers were already in the hundreds of thousands when Bush and his administration stopped counting because he deemed them irrelevant and inevitable, a simple byproduct of his war for... what?

For every American who snickered at Iraqi propagandists who said America was opening the flood gates to hell, can you imagine a hell worse than Iraq right now? To the Americans who bristle with righteous indignation when Arab terrorists kill a thousand Americans, consider the fact that we have killed them through continuous bombings that did not cease between 1992 and 2002, and that the ground war and occupation since then has made such fatalities among non-Americas routine.

Mourn the Dead, Heal the Wounded, End the War

[T]he numbers of dead and injured have become such an embarrassment to the Administration and to many in the media that they are relegated to news "briefs" - impersonal, faceless statistics of this roadside explosion, that helicopter downing, this ambush or that suicide bombing.

The Iraqi death toll is treated even more dismissively. One hundred at this Shiite holy place. Thirty-five policemen here. Fifty-two army recruits there. Civilians standing outside the coalition headquarters in hopes of finding employment. Appalling loss of life that is reduced to body counts while news blackouts shield hospitals overflowing with the wound...

Mourn the Dead, Heal the Wounded, End the War

[T]he numbers of dead and injured have become such an embarrassment to the Administration and to many in the media that they are relegated to news "briefs" - impersonal, faceless statistics of this roadside explosion, that helicopter downing, this ambush or that suicide bombing.

The Iraqi death toll is treated even more dismissively. One hundred at this Shiite holy place. Thirty-five policemen here. Fifty-two army recruits there. Civilians standing outside the coalition headquarters in hopes of finding employment. Appalling loss of life that is reduced to body counts while news blackouts shield hospitals overflowing with the wounded. And let us not forget the dead of nations other than the United States and Iraq. Among the fallen are United Nations staffers, British, Ukrainian and Spanish soldiers, aid workers and Italian policemen.

They are not statistics. They are someone's brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, sons, daughters and friends. Let us honor them in the best possible way: By opposing war and at the same time mourning the fallen.

[Fellowship of Reconciliation, Statement 3/05/04]

Iraq's Bloody Toll

The choreography the Bush administration does around casualties is aimed at creating a dance of lies and disinformation to cover up one of the worst humanitarian crises to strike the Middle East since the Mongols sacked Baghdad.

That is not an overstatement.

A recent poll by the British agency Opinion Research Business (ORB) found that the war may have killed more than one million people, a toll that surpasses the 800,000 killed in the Rwandan genocide. The ORB used "excess mortality" as its measure, that is, deaths over and above mortality figures from the past.
[...]
In 1258 the Mongol generals Hulagu and Guo Kan besieged and took the city of Baghdad. Th...

Iraq's Bloody Toll

The choreography the Bush administration does around casualties is aimed at creating a dance of lies and disinformation to cover up one of the worst humanitarian crises to strike the Middle East since the Mongols sacked Baghdad.

That is not an overstatement.

A recent poll by the British agency Opinion Research Business (ORB) found that the war may have killed more than one million people, a toll that surpasses the 800,000 killed in the Rwandan genocide. The ORB used "excess mortality" as its measure, that is, deaths over and above mortality figures from the past.
[...]
In 1258 the Mongol generals Hulagu and Guo Kan besieged and took the city of Baghdad. They murdered its inhabitants, burned its libraries, and ravished its lands. The Bush administration has done the same, but hidden it behind a smoke screen of lies and voodoo statistics.

For the average Iraqi, there is little difference between the Mongols and the United States. Both have laid waste to their country.

Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus