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Iraq-Jordan
Iraq Puts Civilian Toll at 12,000
2005-06-04
EFL.
BAGHDAD, June 2 -- Insurgent violence has claimed the lives of 12,000 Iraqis over the past 18 months, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday, giving the first official count for the largest category of victims of bombings, ambushes and other increasingly deadly attacks.
You mean it wasn't 100,000? I'm shocked. This works out to about 20 people a day.
At least 36 more Iraqi civilians, security force members and officials were killed Thursday in attacks that underscored the ruthlessness and growing randomness of much of the violence. Thursday's violence demonstrated the ability of insurgents to keep up small attacks despite a week-old security operation in Baghdad billed as the most aggressive yet by Iraq's new government, in office for less than two months. The actions are meant to expose insurgent hideouts in the city, he told reporters from some foreign news organizations, adding, "Within the next few months, we can deal with all of the killings and assassinations."
That sounds a little optimistic.
Interior Ministry statistics showed 12,000 civilians killed by insurgents in the last year and a half, Jabr said. The figure breaks down to an average of more than 20 civilians killed by bombings and other attacks each day. Authorities estimate that more than 10,500 of the victims were Shiite Muslims, based on the locations of the deaths, Jabr said. There have been 1,663 U.S. military deaths since the United States led the liberation invasion of Iraq. Bombings and other terrorist insurgent strikes have killed thousands of Iraqi security force members.

Jabr said the government figures showed that Shiites had suffered the bulk of insurgent attacks. No Sunni Muslim mosques, for example, had been destroyed, he said.
Well of course not. You don't hit your own armories.
Iraq's insurgency is led largely by Ba'athists members of the Sunni Arab minority that was toppled from power with Saddam Hussein. Foreign Arab fighters are largely blamed for the suicide bombings that now claim most of the lives.

Jabr, in some of his first extended remarks to reporters since becoming interior minister, said he saw no legitimacy in the cause of the Sunni Arab fighters. "I have not seen any 'resistance,' " Jabr said in response to a question about clemency for so-called resistance fighters who lay down their arms. "There is terror, and all sides have agreed that anyone raising guns and killing Iraqis is a terrorist."
Give that man a cigar for speaking the unvarnished truth.
Jabr said the new government was trying to reform the Interior Ministry, including expelling officials and officers found to have tortured detainees or others. As an opposition member under Hussein, he said, he had lost 10 members of his family to torture. "I would not accept that anyone practice torture against anyone," he said, adding that he would "personally follow up" on all such allegations.

Jabr also denied reports that members of the Badr militia, Shiite fighters trained in exile in Iran, were complicit in the killing of Sunni clerics last month. Investigation showed that no Badr members were involved, he said. The true killers are "terrorists who are killing Shiite clerics and Sunnis to incite strife," he said.
Posted by:Steve White

#13  Who cares? A thousand or a million or a billion is all the same same to us! They are only 'mud people' just like the Vietmanese / Cambodians / Afghans / Indians / Africans / .....

Small sacrifice for the Greater Glory of the Holy Elite.....
Posted by: Liberal Left   2005-06-04 18:43  

#12  I have still better bumperstickers:

"LIBERALS LOVE DEAD VIETNAMESE"

"LIBERALS LOVE DEAD CAMBODIANS"

"LIBERALS LOVE DEAD AFGHANS"

"LIBERALS LOVE DEAD IRAKIS"
Posted by: JFM   2005-06-04 11:49  

#11  Badnov, Jackal ...lol!
Posted by: 2b   2005-06-04 11:42  

#10  I have a window sticker that says WAR IS THE ANSWER, YOU DAMNED HIPPY.
Posted by: Jackal   2005-06-04 11:29  

#9  And for a little perspective -

US 2004 Highway Deaths Projected to Reach 42,800 [up slightly from 42,643 in 2003]

It's a quagmire out there. When will the dying end?
Posted by: Chinerong Phoper5072   2005-06-04 09:51  

#8  12,000 give or take 11,999.

One realizes how accurate Iraqi reports are...
Posted by: Captain America   2005-06-04 09:39  

#7  2b: That bumper sticker is too long. Try this:

Liberals love dead Americans.

Says it all.
Posted by: badanov   2005-06-04 08:38  

#6  Thanks for the stats!

There is a bumper sticker that I see frequently around here that says, WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.

I always want to walk up to them and say, ok...so what IS your answer to prevent the slaughter of millions?

If I had more chutzpa, I'd put a bumper sticker on my car that says:

WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER
let the tyrants slaughter, starve and enslave = what concern of it is mine?
Posted by: 2b   2005-06-04 08:04  

#5  RMcLeod, the Left did oppose WWII, right up to the moment the Soviet Union was invaded. The Left in France actively sabotaged the war effort, the Left in Britain had strong misgivings (and said so), and the Left in the U.S. was part of the isolationist movement.

Once the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, the Left spun 180 degrees (on a dime!) and became vociferous in demanding a full war effort.
Posted by: Steve White   2005-06-04 02:25  

#4  Liberals..........Fuck 'em.........Fuck 'em all.
Posted by: Unose Whavitle7547   2005-06-04 01:42  

#3  But hey, what's 750,000 people? Nothing, apparently, when weighed against the opportunity to attack Bush and slander the United States military.

Today's Left, transported back to 1941 would plainly would have opposed the war against Germany and Japan because WWII claimed innocent lives. They don't give a CRAP about Iraqi lives no matter how obvious it is that tens of thousands have been saved because of what we've done.
Posted by: RMcLeod   2005-06-04 01:36  

#2  Here is one estimate:

http://wais.stanford.edu/Iraq/iraq_deathsundersaddamhussein42503.html

Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power"

Here's another from a LEFTY site:

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00000635.htm

Since Saddam took over Iraq in 1979 through his ouster in 2003, he supposedly killed some 300,000 citizens (according to repeated Administration assertions). That's roughly 13,000 deaths per year.

And here is a very detailed accounting:

http://thedeadhand.com/blogs/jscroft/articles/627.aspx

Summary:
Minimum Total 739,815

The above table covers a period of 20 years, from 1983 to 2003. That's 7,300 days. Divide that number into the table results, and you arrive at a daily average of about 101 civilian deaths a day under Saddam Hussein's regime.



Posted by: RMcLeod   2005-06-04 01:28  

#1  and just to keep things in perspective how many did Saddam kill on average?
Posted by: 2b   2005-06-04 00:42  

00:00