As this information spreads, I wonder what the impact will be?
The Guardian is reporting that British troops in Iraq will be reduced.
There are 14 thousand coalition soldiers in the country, 8 thousand of them are British. The main British group of 5 thousand will be reduced by a third during rotation in October. According to this site, since March 2003, 66 UK military have been killed in Iraq.
Civilian Iraq deaths have numbered 10 times those of military - people the military euphamize as collateral damage. The number of foreign civilians working in the country being killed is rising quickly.
Published 3 years, 11 months ago
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What’s your source for the 10X civilian deaths, and do those civilians include armed opposition fighters?
Here is one.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
Here is one.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/10/iraq102103.htm
Here is one.
http://www.refuseandresist.org/war/art.php?aid=816
Here is one.
http://www.comw.org/pda/
Here is one.
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/7/3946
Here is one.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/2003-invasion-of-Iraq-casualties
And this article points out that the US military and the International Red Cross do not have a record of civilian deaths.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040927/usnews/27civilian.htm
Its a reasonable question Mark, I know the military count made news at 1 thousand.
According to some of these accounts X10 is too high, and for some, not high enough.
I can’t tell you how many of the X10 were armed opposition fighters. The site I linked to in the post also has a count of non-hostile deaths.
This is a grim statistic that is more verifiable.
http://www.rsf.org/
British Military death statistics can be verified here.
http://www.rsf.org/
Contractor deaths here.
http://www.showmenews.com/2004/Jun/20040617News022.asp
I haven’t found NGO stats.
It seems a tad odd that they’re reducing the number of British troops just as the head of the British Army says they’re “still at war” and now fighting a “counter-insurgency war.”
The Iraqi Body Count site looks very interesting; however, I don’t think all of it qualifies under the “Collateral damage” heading. Most of the deaths were inflicted by anti-US-coalition miliants, not by US/allied troops.
If a US bomb hits non-combatants, that’s collateral damage. If a jihidi blows up a police station, that’s something else, unless you credit all violence to the US account.
I agree there aren’t ‘official’ stats Mark.
The report to the Pentegon I linked to pointed that out.
I don’t credit all violence to the US account.
If ‘collateral damage’ is offensive, or too military, fair enough, I can rephrase that.
There are 10 thousand men women and children, combatant and non-combantant dead in Iraq.
Whatever we ‘call’ them and ‘whoever’ killed them doesn’t make them less dead.:^(