So, since all this business about the Surge has been in the forefront of the news, I’ve been looking for the Iraqi Civilian statistics, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Now, TPM points out why I couldn’t find them [they’re no longer there]:
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.
There’s a four-fold discrepency. So besides the suspicion that Petraeus is feeding us jury-rigged statistics, one wonders if the numbers are even accurate at all – even without their September Massage. That represents, by the way, 37,037 Iraqi Civilians killed in 2006 in Bush’s War [Not that it matters. Bush’s mind is made up.]
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