One day the world is going to find out how many Iraqis have died in Bush's illegal war

Iraq Stats 2006: the UN vs the Iraqi Gov't

By Spencer Ackerman - September 7, 2007, 12:18 PM

As Josh wrote on TPM, getting an apples-to-apples comparison of Iraqi civilian casualties statistics -- an all-important metric to determine the success of General Petraeus' "population protection" strategy -- over the course of the past year is something of a murky endeavor. One of the most credible Iraq-casualties tabulations, crunched by the United Nations, was lost this year after the Iraqi government, embarrassed by the high reported death toll, refused the U.N. access to Health Ministry statistics.

And it's not hard to see why: here are the 2006 numbers from the U.N., month by month, versus an AP-reported month-to-month breakdown of figures compiled from the Iraqi ministries of defense, health and interior.

Jan 06: 1700 UN -- 549 Iraqi ministries

Feb 06: 2100 UN -- 545 Iraqi ministries

Mar 06: 2250 UN -- 769 Iraqi ministries

Apr 06: 2200 UN -- 686 Iraqi ministries

May 06: 2669 UN -- 932 Iraqi ministries

Jun 06: 3149 UN -- 885 Iraqi ministries

Jul 06: 3590 UN -- 1062 Iraqi ministries

Aug 06: 3009 UN -- 769 Iraqi ministries

Sep 06: 3250 UN -- 1099 Iraqi ministries

Oct 06: 3600 UN* -- 1288 Iraqi ministries

Nov 06: 3400 UN -- 1846 Iraqi ministries

Dec 06: 2800 UN -- 1927 Iraqi ministries

If I've made any mistakes in compiling this, I'll adjust as necessary. But here you can see the discrepancy in determining how many Iraqis died each month in 2006 alone. In February, for instance, the violence in the wake of the Samarra mosque bombing killed at least 130 Iraqis in one day, making the Iraqi government's count of 535 casualties that entire month rather dubious.

*An Associated Press story from November 2006 pegged the October 2006 UN figure at 3709. There is no explanation for the discrepancy between the UN reported number and the AP account.

More Than 1,700 Civilians Killed in Iraq in August

By VOA News
01 September 2007

Iraqi government statistics show at least 1,771 civilians were killed in the country in August, a slight increase from July.

hat figure includes the more than 400 people killed August 14 in a massive bomb attack on the minority Yazidi community in northern Iraq. In July, more than 1,650 civilians were reported killed in Iraq.

The U.S. military says radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's decision this week to stop Mahdi Army militia activities will allow coalition forces to intensify operations against al-Qaida in Iraq.

more

In May 2,770 civilians were killed in Iraq, an average of 89 a day. The violence is up from April, when there were 2,590 reported civilian deaths, an average of 86 a day; in March the toll was 2,731, an average of 88 a day; in February 2,720 civilians died, an average of 97 a day, while in January 2,800 died, or 90 a day. In the first 5 months of 2007 already more than 13,600 civilians have been killed.

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