"10,000 iraqi civilains have been killed since May".
It's the kind of number, the kind of statement that catches your attention, that tells a stunning story almost by itself. Iraq is a bloodbath, it says, Iraq is out of control, Iraq is the new killing field.. I heard it first in a story we ran during our Saturday 5:00 newcast. I heard it again in our 6:30 newscast. And the second time it just didn't seem right.
Mimi and I looked at each other in the commercial break and had the same questions. "Can that really be right? 10,000 civilians killed in three months? More than 100 killings a day, every day, for three solid months?"
We started net-checking berfore we came back on the air, something we do often, testing each other's statements and testing the content of the newcast. Sure enough, there were other references to the same number, all seemingly based on a Pentagon report released on Friday.
But other numbers just didn't seem right, didn't fit and didn't add up to that 10,000 figure. They showed maybe half that many Iraqi civilian deaths. Still a horrible number by any standard, but a very different number. So why the discrepancy?
I hate loose ends, especially when they have to do with things that are said on our air during our newscasts, so after the 6:30 news I kept poking around trying to make sense of the grotesque math. One article, from the Washington Post, made reference to "3,000 Iraqis killed OR WOUNDED..." each month during that time period. And it started to make sense, IF the figure was not Iraqi DEAD, but Iraqi "casualties", as the military defines "casualty", meaning dead, wounded and incapacitated.
I called back east to NBC Newschannel, the arm of the nertwork that feeds a lot of material to affiliates all over the country. Jennifer Johnson, the reporter who did the story that appeared in our 5:00 newscast was loong gone. So was her producer. The people fielding my question had no idea where the number came from but they said they would check, and they emailed me other articles which inlcuded the same figure. Later they called and said they had checked with Jennifer at home. All she could tell them was that she had gotten the number from a Nightly News story the night before by Jim Miklaszewski.
I looked up Jim's script and sure enough, there it was. "Civilian casualties soared by more than fifty percent- ten thousand dead since May."
Now Miklaszewski has been working in Washington D.C. and working the Pentagon beat since before the advent of dirt. He's a pro. To say he's an experienced broadcast journalist is a ludicrous understatement. He knows the American Military through and through. So maybe I was missing something..
Next I dug up (bless those Google people) the Pentagon report that all of this pointed back to. On page 32 I found a bar graph, detailing numbers of Coalition and Iraqi "Casualites" from mid-May to mid-August. I did the math. Sure enough, the 118 Iraqi daily "casualties" added up to a little less that 10,000 for the 84-day period. But the number still didn't seem right, that breathless demonstration of the hideousness of war seemed askew. For three reasons:
1) The title of the graph clearly states that the figures include the Iraqi Security Forces, so the daily numbers were not just for "civilians", but included the Iraqi soldiers and police who are increasingly on the front lines of combat.
2) The COALITION "casualty" figures for the same period, included in the same graph, were set at about 18 a day. 18 a day.. If coaltion forces had been killed at a rate of 18 a day, every day, for the last three months, we would have known it long ago. So it seems likely that the figure includes the military concept of "casualty", which goes beyond just fatalities. And it seems reasonable to assume the Iraqi "casualty" figures, in the same bar-graph, do the same. If they do, then it explains a lot, and possibly clears up the dsicrepancy. And it makes the simple, dramatic statement that "10,000 Iraqi civilains have been killed since May" an untrue statement.
3) Less important, but still interesting: The same graph includes a statement that the collection of data at attack sites in Iraq is so difficult, so vague and hard to confirm, that the numbers should be used for comparison purposes only, for gauging trends over time, and should not be used as definitive, stand-alone figures.
I called Newschannel again and told them my theory. They thanked me and said they'd look into it. Later I got a phone call saying that since the original "10,000 civilians killed" figure came from Miklaszewski, they were going to go with it, keep the stories and the scripts in the system without any changes and they would pass my concerns along to the folks at Nightly News and the DC bureau.
Now it's Sunday night, 24 hours later, and I'm still waiting for somebody at the network level to educate me, show me where in that Pentagon report they got that horrible and dramatic figure. Am I wrong about "casualty" being misinterpreted? Do they have acess to other sources of information which they are using but not citing?
If they're wrong, will they clear it up and clarify the number for me and for all their viewers? And if I'm wrong, will they contact me and show me where my math went wrong?
I'm waiting, but not exactly holding my breath..
Allen Schauffler
Allen,
One of the biggest failures of the Media today is the degree to which outlets repeat the news without verifying its accuracy.
Thanks for your tenacity in getting the real number. I just wish more people would do the same.
Thanks, Allen, for making an effort to report a story with the real facts and not just winging it like so many reporters do. Reported casualties, I believe, aren't just people killed. A wounded soldier or civilian is also a casualty. You could look at the fact that casualties may also be people who have been displaced from their homes because of a battle area, too.
Allen,
I find your honesty refreshing. Many networks seem eager to put their spin on events that it often gives a false taste. With all the mixed emotions that go hand in hand with war, we need the straight facts and not conjectures. We especially do not need "general" facts being passed off as the truth. All it does is create a spreading of falsehoods. We should all be concerned and make it our priority to be informed about what is going on in different parts of the world. It is nice to know that you and your fellows, if not your superiors, are working hard at giving us actual facts so we can make up our own minds regarding the issues.
I know you aren't doing this to get kudos, but this is precisely the persistence missing from journalism. Your people likely let the number pass because indeed 10,000 dead starts to sound like a "big number". It's a number that might make viewers tune in. Also, it's a number that is hard to dispute, so why bother? Ratings are more important.
Thereafter, the story is itself the "truth". As the saying goes, say something long enough, and indeed it will be the "truth".
I was thinking about this again in the last few days and it does feel a bit ghoulish. What's the real moral difference between 10,000 dead and 5,000 dead? Not much is there; both numbers are horrifying, both numbers paint a picture of a grotesque, deadly and hate-poisoned environment, both numbers are sickening. But one is right and one is wrong, within the limits of fact-gathering on the ground in Iraq. It is a matter of degrees and each degree seems important.
In a strange way I feel guilty trying to nail down the specifics of what the NBC story said and how they got that number. It feels unseemly, inappropriate somehow to be asking for details.
But I'm still curious, still hoping to tie up that loose end. Five days later I haven't heard a peep from the pundits at NBC or at Newschannel, the arm of the network that funnels material to affiliates all over the country.
Not a peep. They have moved on to other news. And that number, never explained (at least not to me) just hovers out there in the post-broadcast air and lives on in web reports and news archives, where it can be picked up and re-used.
It's got to be part of their agenda against the war. That, which makes me believe it only in part, as you (Allen) and the rest of us have tried to make some sense of their statements.
Allen,
How many civilians died in the World Trade Center attack? How many died in Nanking? How many died after America abandoned Southeast Asia thanks to John Murtha and the Democrats?
How many civilians died on Okinawa? In Berlin? In Dresden?
How many Frenchmen were killed during the Normandy invasion?
Perhaps you see my point. The Islamists don't care how many civilians die and our side takes almost absurd precautions, much to the deaths of our own troops, to appease you fat liberal couch monkies at home.
How many civilians died in Lebanon because the Lebanese have been supporting Hezbollah since the 1980's, those idiots have no reason to get sympathy from any reasonable minded human being.
The civilian deaths will stop when the islamists are put in machine gun ditches where they belong.
I just have to point out that its people with the closed mindness such as Dan's that separate this nation. Dan.. not every person who believes in the Islamic Religion deserve to put as you say" in machine gun ditches where they belong". People like you give others around the world a deadly misconception of Americans. We are a nation built on the sweat and blood of many different races, backgrounds and religions, please remember that. But we are a built on a nation that allows you to voice your opinion, however ridiculous it maybe.
(People like you give others around the world a deadly misconception of Americans.)
The Islamic freaks who've been killing our people since 1979 are not clouded by any misconception. I just have to point out that uneducated and unworldly couch monkies like Christine are the reason for all the Americans murdered by Islamo-freako-fascism.
We are a nation built on sacrifices the latest generation of leftist cowards could give a rats behind about.
(I just have to point out that its people with the closed mindness such as Dan's that separate this nation.)
I have to point out again that the Constitution allows me NOT to march in your jack boots of liberal idiocy Christine. You seem to have forgotten that.
Dan Rush
You need to lighten up on Christine here, dude. You and I have done a lot of blogging together on KING5 about this war, but I see no reason for name calling of someone who has an opinion not in align with yours.
If you want to get down on someone, try going after the a__hole politicians (left and right wings both) that are standing up in front of all of America making statements about these issues and doing it in line with their parties and not their OWN opinions. It's all for partison gain and nothing else. The only one who seems (to me, anyway) to be standing for ALL OF AMERICANS is Geo Bush. The rest only seem to be doing a lot of blah blah blah. The only way to stop all of this rhetoric is to kick the islamic faciasts asses down to nothing.
Oh by the way. Did you know that the president has time to spy on the phone calls and internet of 300 MILLION people in this country. Jus thow long would that take anyway.
Sorry - I just had to get that last dig in. It just proves how idiotic all this rhetoric of the President spying on people is. He's only after the bad guys. UNLESS YOU'RE HIDING SOMETHING....
Allen, Does it even matter if it is 10000 dead or 10000 wounded, 5000 dead or 5000 wounded? The fact is...those are just the numbers in 3 months...How many are dead? Since the inception of this war that should never have taken place..since we now know that the information that Bush/Cheney used was based on fraudulant info. There is no justification to the deaths of this many people...women, men, children who were and are completely innocent. Now we find ourselves fighting in a country that is determined to fight back. They believe that we are the invaders...and they they will fight us to the death. And we are the invaders. We did invade. Oh but thats right...once the truth was out about wmd's in Iraq. Bush changed his rhetoric to be...We had to take out Saddam..He was a threat...I have just one question. Was it justifiable to kill over 50,000 Iraq civilians just to take out saddam? Was it ok to cause the deaths of thousands of children....just to take out Saddam? Frankly, I see no justification in this. We could have found other ways to take out that man...without killing innocent..tens of thousands of innocent people....
Such stupid people in the Northwest these days.
(Since the inception of this war that should never have taken place..)
You mean "Since the inception of this war brought about by the failed war crimes of the United Nations and Bill Clinton who's illegal sanctions and Food for Oil scandel kept Saddam safely in power to murder more people and eventually have more of the WMD's that Bill Clinton used to justify his crimes..."
(Since we now know that the information that Bush/Cheney used was based on fraudulant info.)
If that is the case then Bill Clinton and all the Democrats who justified UN criminalism based on Saddam having WMD should be dragged from their offices and tried in court for lying to the American people.
(There is no justification to the deaths of this many people...women, men, children who were and are completely innocent.)
Tell that to the Islamic extremists you weak-a** peace sucking coward.
(Now we find ourselves fighting in a country that is determined to fight back.)
You are a racist bastard. So, you would like to see Islamic radicalism continue to butcher more people as it has butchered people for the last 60 years? I guess if you're not white, liberal and living in a cozy house you don't deserve freedom? Liberals are the most racist, selfish, hateful, cowardly bastards on the planet.
(They believe that we are the invaders...and they they will fight us to the death.)
No, the Islamo-fascists and their puritanic Islamist fascist idiology are the ones fighting us to gain control of Iraq so they can turn it into a puritist Islamist hell for all the weak people who can't fight back.
(And we are the invaders. We did invade.)
And keeping Saddam in power, allowing the UN Secretary General to pocket illegal cash, allowing Food for Oil to fill the pockets of criminal Euro-pee-on liberals and continuing a cycle of Islamo-fascist violence is your idea?
People like you should be cleansed from the earth.
(Oh but thats right...once the truth was out about wmd's in Iraq. Bush changed his rhetoric to be...We had to take out Saddam.)
And your slogan was...."MORE BLOOD FOR SADDAM!"
F**K Y***U!
(He was a threat...I have just one question. Was it justifiable to kill over 50,000 Iraq civilians just to take out saddam?)
It was justifiable to kill over 3 million Japanese and Germans to clean the world of Nazis. Cowardly a-hole.
(Was it ok to cause the deaths of thousands of children....just to take out Saddam?)
How many children have died from 60 years of puritanical Islamic insanity?
(Frankly, I see no justification in this.)
Frankly I see you as just another enemy who needs to be locked up or wiped out.
(We could have found other ways to take out that man)
You liberal socialist loving bastards would have complained about that too. You had no solutions other than to allow Saddam to exist. Hitler would have loved you scum bag.
(...without killing innocent..tens of thousands of innocent people....)
Liberal pipedreams, boo whoooo there must be a better way...boo hoooo....that way's not good! There must be another way.....boooo hoooo!
Remember what the Democrat Congress did to South Vietnam in 1975? Abandoning Southeast Asia to Communist expansion? Can you bring back the 2 million southeast asians murdered by North Vietnam? The Pat Tet Lau of Laos, Pol Pot in Cambodia you stupid liber-tard bastard?
You liberals and Democrat a-holes had no solutions in the 1990's when it was you who cried about Saddam's WMD's, when it was you who pressed for UN sanctions, when it was you who supported Fool for Oil, when it was you who time after time abandoned chance after chance to kill Saddam or support regime change. When it was you who voted into Law the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act then failed to support it.
I say the Democrats and liberals of America are by far the worst racists and fascists the world has seen since the Nazis, you conspire with world Socialism and world Islamo-ism to destroy freedom and condemn people to Islamic slavery all for the goal of hording political power.
Tred lightly...you may soon go too far.
Since some liberals want to complain about dead civilians, let's look at another Democrat Party inspired debachle. In 1950, the Chinese Communists entered the Korean War when North Korea's fascist regime was about to expire. Insted of using the atomic bomb, which was justified given China's intervention, Harry Truman decided on cowardice.
How many North Koreans have died since 1950 and the UN criminal cease fire that maintained the murdering Kim regime for the past 50 years? How many have died in concentration camps north of Pyongyang, or have starved in the last 20 years, or have died from Chinese boarder guards executing starving Koreans as they tried to cross the Yalu into Manchuria?
In 1994, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton performed the worst act of international diplomacy ever seen since neval Chamberlin signed away Checkoslovakia to Hitler in 1938 by signing a sham agreement with the North Koreans under a false promise that they would end their quest for nuclear weapons.
This week end the North Koreans could be on the verge of obtaining these weapons, the Democraps and liber-tards have placed into the hands of a mad man his soul ability to order a nuclear attack against South Korea, Japan or the US mainland all under the excuse for a blind sham peace.
You talk about how many civilians? How many civilians have died and will die on the Korean Penninsula because of the mental retardation infesting liberal America?
How many babies have been killed in the liberal concentration camp of abortion?
You liberals are as close to Nazis as it gets.
Crying about the numbers of civilian deaths is a typical leftist, socialist, communist supporting mantra of the ultra-fascist ubertarian left. They bitch about the numbers of dead at Hiroshima for instance, let's just forget that it was Japan's Imperial warmongers (By the way they were Socialists) who brought Japan to ruin.
The Islamo-fascists, these cave dwelling, rug kissing, rip van winkle beard growing, sand eating, Jawa looking monkey Islamic whacko dirty pirates in nightsheet wearing nazis have been killing civilians and their own kind for thousands of years. To listen to these spoiled, selfish, greedy, racist liberal retards in America who sacrifice nothing for any of the things they bitch and complain about, they want woman to wear black bedsheets over their faces, they want girls to stay in closets at home, they want men to be killed for being gay or for listening to rock and roll or have women shot in the head for wearing lipstick or drinking water on a Sunday. These stupid, cowardly, incompetant, incapable and actless idiots of liberalism are nazism's best companions. Inaction and flower sniffing breeds and helps dictators and fuels the fires of eventual wars.
When you face a bestial enemy with no compassion, no morals and no compunctions what so ever to use civilians as shields, children as bombs and popullations as cannon fodder, you will have civilians deaths.
Get God damn used to it. The only way to achieve peace is to kill these murdering bestullant Islamo hugging bastards untill every arab and every apostulate of Islam is made to understand that supporting this evil madness of Islamic purity leads only to death and eventually to anihillation. We fought the Japanese 60 years ago when they were just as bad as these Islamic fascist monkies and it is the only solution to end their madness otherwise we will see only further death and destruction for decades to come.
North Korea has tested an atomic weapon. I so hate being right. Thank you Bill Clinton and world socialist leftism for the North Korean achievement.
What are all these people in the northwest thinking. Seattle is a prime target for Korea's nukes. Are you willing to stand for that??? Are you willing to stretch these policies out to the breaking point in order to keep from killing their innocent civilians while risking our own people's lives??? We have to kick their asses out of self preservation. And China better stand up for what's right.
What should have been done in November of 1950 when the Chinese vermin came to the defense of their North Korean friends was to use atomic weapons like MacArthur wanted too. Insted, Harry Truman ran like a coward under his desk and allowed the socialist infected United Nitwits to run the war into the ground. We would not be here if it wasn't for Liberals, Democrats and their ties to Beijing. That fat pompus whore Mad-lady Allbright should be dragged from her Allbright Group office, charged with treason and executed for her 1994 kissing visit to Kim Jong Ill.
The Clinton/UN deal with North Korea ranks as the greatest foreign policy disaster to plauge the world since the 1938 meeting between Nevel Chamberlin and Adolf Hitler. We have had the empty paper of peace waved in our face once more. And it is clear that China was the perpetraitor of this elaberate ruse to suck the world into nuclear blackmale with North Korea.
All the Democrats and Congress itself should be hauled into a courtroom, those with ties to China exposed and all of those D.C. rats tried for treason and sedition in their support of China. We should raise tarriffs on Chinese goods and force those communist maniacs to deal with their North Korean fence dog.
This is what happens when liberal socialists are put in charge of defending freedom, they fail every time!
Iraq 'hiding true casualty figures'
THE Iraqi Government has told medical authorities not to reveal to the UN the true extent of civilian casualties in the country's conflict, French newspaper Le Monde said today.
The daily quoted a telegram sent by the head of the UN mission in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, to headquarters in New York, in which he said: "This development risks damaging the capacity of the UN's Assistance Mission to report the number of civilians killed or injured."
Posted Oct 20, 2006 10:07 AM PST
Category: IRAQ
And what country wouldn't want the true number of civilian casualties known by the world, particularly beforeits mid-term election?
whatreallyhappened.com
normous death toll of Iraq invasion revealed
Around 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the US-led coalition invasion, according to the largest scientific analysis yet.
655,000 people.
Why?
Why are they dead, when they should be alive? - M. R.
whatreallyhappened.com for the REAL story that King 5 or any of the "liberal" media won't give you.
And remember repuglycon rule #2, "it's Clinton's fault". Rule #1, Repeat the lie again and again, eventually it is believed by the morons. (see WMD)
Support bush- Enlist Now
Our soldiers in Iraq are DYING for your help.
War is good business- Invest YOUR kids.
little dan just waves his flag while others die.
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I wish the islamo-fascist would do us all a favor and kill the loony-liberals like darin. Taking figures from the euro-pee-on french has no credibillity. When will you liberals face up to everything the islamo-facsist hate about America you liberals endorse. They would kill you for even mentioning GAY marriage
islamo-fascists-ooh scary....loony-liberal-ouch....Remember, when you can't attack the substance, attack the messenger. Sorry, Flag burning and Gay marraige not high on my radar. Lying presidents, vice presidents, sec-def, high up. Johns Hopkins is where the dead civilian count study was done, sorry. Just some crazy East Coast Liberal school, I'm sure. Can't blame the spineless French for that. How come we aren't bombing the crap out of N. korea? Not a drop of oil under there. Remember, when you can't attack the substance, attack the messenger. What a bush bootlicker- JOIN UP.
Saddam is dead, I suppose the joyous Iraqis now dancing in Everett is proof the Iraqis hate us for invading huh you little bastard?
Saddam is dead, no thanks to the shiftless liberal a-holes of Seattle who supported Saddam's continued existance under the protection of Bill Clinton and the United Nations.
screw you punk.
Good site! I'll stay reading! Keep improving!