AP: Casualties of War: Possibly over 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad alone

Plenty of speculation to go around. What does Dennis Miller have to do with this? I never heard him making fun of civilian casualties.

Speculation? Huh?

You think doctors are speculating on the number of maimed corpses they have to deal with every day in Iraqi hospitals?

3000 of over 5 million? Excuse me if I don't get mad at the government. That is .06% of the population of Baghdad. Let's look at other wars, shall we?
Tokyo, WWII: 130,000 of 3.49 million (3.7%)
Dresden, WWII: 60,000 of 670,000 (8.9%)
Baghdad, Gulf War I: 3500(.07%)

While it is sad that civilians had to die, at the same time, it is clear the US did all it could to avoid killing civilians.

First of all, comparing casualty numbers to wars where we actually met resistance is facetious.

Second of all it is NOT clear that the US did all it could to prevent civilian casualties, since they exist.

By the way, the use of cluster bombs makes it REALLY unclear that we did all we could to reduce civilian casualties.

With, of course, the exception of not pre-emptively starting a war.

Not to mention that even if you discount the pre-emptive war angle, we clearly did not since our soldiers stood around and watched as looters and mobs stole medical equipment and injured and killed civilians.

If just one Iraqi died as a result of that (and more than one did), then we clearly did not do all we could to prevent casualties.

I think it is worthwhile remembering that it is enormously difficult to calculate death-tolls post [some disaster] even in the technologically advanced western world.

This level of difficulty is increased almost exponentially in Iraq/Baghdad, with its smashed communications infrastructure, lack of hospital facilities and public service departments (police/firemen).

It took NY city weeks to figure out how many people died in two (albeit very large) office blocks.

I doubt that anyone will ever be able to come to an accurate figure in Baghdad, and even a semi-accurate figure could be months away.

IMO mortality statistics at such an early juncture are probably worth taken with pinch of salt.

These are indeed sad figures.

And, I agree... cluster bombs suck. Might as well call 'em Kid Killers.

I absolutely disagree. They're important for establishing a sense of scale, which is military commanders make casualty estimates on BOTH SIDES as they fill out summary reports on every sortie or mission they carry out.

9/11 estimates took forever to get solidifed, and even though the final casualty number is perhaps 60 percent of the initial 5,000+ estimate, does that change the impact of the attack in any way? No. People need to understand the scale of the destruction to civilians, even if specifics are impossible to arrive at.

You can't compare this to 9/11 where bodies were trapped in the rubble of two of the world's tallest buildings or were vaporized. There is literally no comparison here.

I think you might be underestimating 'the people’s’ level of intelligence.

I doubt you'll find a person willing to argue that anything less than 'a lot' of people died in Baghdad during the bombing.

1,000? 5,000? 10,000? Does the number of deaths really make a difference? Does it make war any more or less horrifying?

I concede that guesstimates are okay for newspaper headlines, but I fail to see what use they are outside that scope.

And people aren't 'vaporized' or buried under rubble when a bomb drops on them?

Have you ever seen what a bomb can do to people in 'real life'?

I've been in the middle of a bomb blast chief, it aint pretty and there aint much left to pick up afterwards.

Hey, "chief," there's a big difference between a three story building collapsing and the World Trade Center, with HUNDREDS of floors, collapsing.

I've seen plenty of people who are willing to say anything BUT that a lot of people died in Baghdad.

Hence the "We did everything we could"/"It went great"/"Casualties were at an absolute minimum" school of thought.

All rationalizations.

A 500lb bomb detonated within approximately 20 feet of a human being can obliterate all visual traces of that person from the face of the earth.

Larger ordinance and you'd be lucky to find microbial evidence.

Are you implying we met resistance in Gulf War I?

Compared to this one? Yeah.

Oh there are always individuals who will say such things, usually politicians.

Most people, IMO, are usually pragmatic enough to recognise that in wars: humans get killed.

Could you post a link to the full story (or at least point me in the right direction)?

Sorry for my lack of web savvy, but I'm not sure how to find the article. I've tried Google and the AP wire and have failed to figure out how to pull it up.

We must have a lot of politicians on this board, then.

But if we simply write-off civilian casualties as part of war, why take any measures to avoid them? Why not just carpet-bomb Iraq into nothingness and start fresh?

I believe the answer is that civilian casualties are not JUST a part of war. They're the worst consequence of war, and the precise reason why war should be a last, last, LAST resort in relations between two countries.

We moved it up from last resort to about 4th or 5th resort. That's the problem.

Found the article... several actually. If anyone cares to take a gander, here's a link to the <a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/5778486.htm" target="_blank">Philadelphia Inquirer</a> version.

At the risk of sounding facetious, Internet message boards and armchair politics invariably go hand-in-hand.

Because I don't think that the level of casualties has anything to do with people's interpretation of war. It's a statistic, not a reality.

Tell people that a million people died in war(X) and they'll probably be taken aback with shock, some may rant, some may cry but at the end of the day - it's only a statistic, it isn't something tangible you can cling to and say with unequivocal certainty that war is wrong.

The problem we have here is that there's been too much telling and not enough showing. The smartest trick that the Allies have pulled in this whole campaign is that they have convinced Joe-average that the war has been transparent. A media war; 'Embedded' journalists; war served up for you in every detail; verisimilitude; truth; authenticity; 'fair and unbiased'; absolutely, positively goddamned de facto!

What rubbish.

War isn't a camera shoved in PFC John Doe's face whilst he says hello to his mom back home and then pulls the cord on a 150mm howitzer.

War is what happens at the other end, war is where the shell lands.

War is the mother raising her head to the skies and howling like some feral animal as she clutches the remains of her dead child to her bosom. Head smashed open, limbs blasted off - that child had a name. That child had a smile. That child had a life. That child had a laugh.

Of course, we can't see these images because they are 'too sensitive', 'too shocking' or 'too disgusting' - not 'fit for public consumption'.

But hey – we can show you everything else; especially statistics, we got them coming out of our ears, we can serve ‘em up with your coffee and toast by the bucket load!

Statistics are good; statistics are appetising; statistics are safe; statistics make good TV.

Many years ago I stood in the midst of one bomb’s carnage. On that day I learned more about the horrors of war than a billion statistics could ever have taught me.

Great post, AgentOrange.

Echoing Jacob, I applaud what you say here.

But I don't think we'll ever see such things in Government-controlled media in America. And because we're the lone superpower, we'll never KNOW it or experience it aside from the very occasional 9/11 or Oklahoma City-type assault.

So what then? How do we get these people to stop thinking of war in terms of "I support the President, I support the troops" without any thought whatsoever and to start thinking in terms of "Wait a minute...what am I actually advocating here?"

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First of all, thanks for the compliments Mikah and Jacob.
It's a difficult question really and I have a sneaking suspicion that things could get worse before they get better.

For many years I have been sharply critical of the UK media (BBC, ITN plus newspapers) because of its anodyne approach to matters such as this. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw being churned out of FOX News when I tuned in for the first time a few weeks ago.

To say that I was appalled by it's jingoistic fervour and vitriol is an understatement, and as if that wasn't bad enough, I then found out (in this forum I think) that it is one of (if not the) most popular News outlets in America!

The only thing I can say with any real certainty is that as long as garbage such as this remains at top of the ratings those opposed to war are always going to be fighting an uphill battle.

Tell me; is Fox News’ standpoint representative of all media outlets in the US or are they on their own?

All news is slanted-Be it Fox, CNN, BBC or Al-Jeezera. Fox may be rah-rah but there are many places to look. Watch it with CNN and MSNBC and you'll be decent. Read and you'll be better. Atleast it's not show one side Arab TV. I loved the video of the Arab world reacting to the Iraq defeat. They were fed such bull shit about how Iraq was going to kick ass and the people would resist. Truth hurts.

the topic-there seems to be no point arguing but if it was the intent to destroy Baghdad the U.S. would have lived up to the hyped 10,000-500-000 civillian deaths.
Say the last 25 years Saddam is responsible for a million civillian deaths through war, exacution, ect...
that's about 770 dead a week over those 25 years. I'm sure Saddam had more brutal weeks and some where he just killed a few.

Does the ends justify the means? Can Michael moore make a movie about those deaths?

Agent Orange has emerged as one of the few true Voices of Reason on these boards.

I also applaud you, sir.

That's on the money there. The US could have pounded Baghdad - absolutely blasted it into oblivion. We could have used a MOAB over Saddam City. We could have done a lot of things. Instead, what did we do? Bomb relatively empty buildings in the government sector of town. The reaction from those media against the war would have been the same, so PR would have been sixes. We could have dropped bombs without JDAMs and saved the taxpayer 18,000 dollars per bomb. Everything the US did was done in a way to minimize civilian casualties. Sure, there was the errant bomb that fell in the wrong place due to pilot error, Saddam's GPS jammers, or whatever, but by and large it was the most precise targeting anyone has ever attempted.
The military shouldn't have denied that some accidents happened, however.