Talk:Casualties of the Iraq War/Archive 1

Title.
This page actually discusses casualties from both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, so I think it should be renamed to something like "Casualties in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq". Any objections? Suggestions for a better title? (I think it should remain one page, rather than having separate pages about the invasion and the occupation, because most people interested in either would want to know about both, and I think it's best to have "Casualties" as the first word of the title, since that's its subject. The title I just suggested, though, is a bit unwieldy.) Neow 01:44, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Non USA coalition wounded?
Does anyone have any statistics on wounded soldiers from other coalition countries besides the U.S.? The death tolls on this page are inclusive, but counts of wounded soldiers are limited to U.S. troops. Neow 00:43, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Number of mercenaries.
I have looked into the 18,000 number and cannot independently verify it. Aside from having many friends in theater, who dispute this, I was able to dig up a few sources: TDC


 * The fact that you or your friends in the theater cannot verify what a professional journalist has reported from the scene does not make it false, or even credibly disputed. I don't think U.S. troops generally get leave to travel around Iraq researching the deployment of armed contractors.


 * If you have seen an actual news source that claims there is a lower number of armed contractors, then it would be reasonable to modify what we say in this article, but if no such source can be found, then the claims in the story we do know about remain undisputed.


 * The suggestion that the 80 civilian contractors who were killed in the last couple of weeks were cooks and cleaners seems somewhat absurd to me; most of them were presumably armed security personnel. Neow

Thanks to overlapping contracts and multiple contracting offices, nobody in the Pentagon seems to know precisely how many contractors are responsible for which jobs -- or how much it all costs. http://www.newhouse.com/archive/wood080103.html TDC


 * The Pentagon has no incentive to disclose such information, and even if, in fact, nobody in the Pentagon knows the total number of contractors, an investigative reporter could still do independent research (for example, via contacts in the contracting agencies) to determine at least a lower bound for that number.


 * The story you cite above even reports one study's conclusion that "over the past decade, there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of contract civilians performing work the military used to do itself," which makes the figure of 18,000 sound at least plausible. Neow

The coalition refuses to disclose how many contractors -- and in particular, security contractors -- it has employed in Iraq, "out of legitimate concern for security," said one spokesman. http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/04/02/as_insurgent_attacks_increase_so_do_contractors_costs/ TDC


 * The fact that the coalition does not provide this information does not invalidate a reporter's research. It just means that the result should not be characterized as "official" or "officially acknowledged." Neow

even your own source disputes the statment in the article TDC


 * Hmm... given that the story had previously clarified that by "mercenary" it means private security personnel, I don't see how the quote below does anything other than affirm that at least 18,000 armed contractors are at work in Iraq. Neow

''At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1 000 (about R6 300) a day. But their companies rarely acknowledge their losses unless - like the four American murdered and mutilated in Fallujah three weeks ago - their deaths are already public knowledge.''

The individuals I spoke to about this said that most of the contractors they deal with perform duties such as cleaning, food service, electrician, plumbers etc..., and security duties are kept to low value instalations, except when the contractor happens to be highly trained (ex-special op). TDC 00:18, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * The story I cited agrees:


 * although many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the US Department of Defence - and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers - they are not listed as serving military personnel.


 * So, your friends confirm the story's claim that DoD is using private (ex-special op) armed contractors to protect military installations.


 * I don't imagine many wikipedia contributors have any way of personally verifying how many security contractors are in Iraq. I certainly don't. News stories, then, are our primary source of information. Nor do I have any personal investment in showing a particular number in this article. I just don't see a justification, absent any credible report to the contrary, for censoring the information from the story I found, especially based on anecdotes you've heard that apparently only confirm what the story said. Neow 19:04, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Listen, my whole contention of the article is that the 18,000 figure supplied and the descrition leads the reader to believe that there are 18,000 private contractors in Iraq performing security duty. It should be made clear that while the number of contractors is roughly 18000, the duties of the 18,000 are not security, but cvilian related (mail, truck drivers, cooks, cleaners, clerical, technical, etc...).

II find it hard to believe that there are anywhere near 18,000 former SF members in Iraq working as security gaurds, but I find it completely believable that the bulk of the 18,000 are perfroming civilian duties (mail, truck drivers, cooks, cleaners, clerical, technical, etc...). .

As an example, a DOD contractor the other day was killed while driving a truck in a fuel convoy. Clearly he was not a combatant and had to rely on the US Army for his protection as he was unarmed.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0416/p02s01-usgn.html

While it is true that an unknown number of DOD contractors in Iraq are performing armed duties, I beleive this number is relatively small, and cannot be verified.

Do you follow me?TDC 19:39, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I think I see the problem: you're either misreading the story I cited or superimposing your unverified beliefs on what it says. First, it does not say there are 18,000 miscellaneous contractors. (In fact, the story you cited on boston.com gives an estimate of some 30-40K contractors in Iraq.) It says there are 18,000 "mercenaries," which it specifically defines as "security guards" (it's not referring to "mercenary" cooks). I was trying to lead the reader to believe that there are 18,000 private security workers in Iraq because that's what was reported. Do you really believe you know more about how many armed contractors DoD has in Iraq than a journalist on the scene whose job it is to investigate such matters? I don't believe either of us has enough personal knowledge to contest that.


 * Second (even if you could back up your belief that there couldn't be 18,000 former SF members in Iraq, which actually sounds quite high to me too), the story only said that "most" of the "heavily armed Western security men" are former Special Forces soldiers. This leaves open the possibility that some unspecified portion of the 18,000 security contractors might be armed but not "heavily armed," such as the ones your friends said are posted on "low value installations" (presumably, the story was focusing on the heavily armed ones because they are more likely to be deployed in dangerous situations).


 * So, it could be true that there are a total of 18,000 armed security personnel in Iraq, and you could also be right that only some fraction of them are ex-SF troops. Can you give any reason aside from your personal beliefs to censor the reported information? Neow 23:40, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Update: here's a story from the NY Times confirming that roughly 20,000 private security personnel are in Iraq. I'm not sure how relevant this number actually is to this article on casualties, though, so I'm only mentioning it here for the moment.

Outsourcing casualties? With economic and political advantages to outsourcing security in Iraq, what are the civilian contractor casualites? In what way is the US Congress monitoring total casualties, given that congressionally authorized taxes and borrowing fund these deaths?

There weren't truly mercenaries in Iraq. A mercenary is defined under international treaty as a person in a foreign conflict whose nation is not a party to the conflict. So any American contractors working for PMCs are just that, they can't be called mercenaries because the USA was obviously a party to the conflict. Also, the American contractors were being paid by their own government, typically working for their own US State Dept. When the American government hires an American to fight in an American war, then that's not a mercenary. (I think there might have been some Chilean soldiers hired by Blackwater, and they could be called mercenaries, but I'm not sure whether there were very many there.) Walterego (talk) 16:12, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Deaths of non coalition, non Iraqi forces?
A Cape Argus report states that 6 South Africans (4 working for security companies) have been killed in Iraq (the SA government is not part of the coalition, strongly rejecting all the reasons given so far for the escalation, and the government has said that these people are there illegally as mercenaries). Under what section title do we list these kinds of deaths? "Other"? - Jeandré, 2004-05-04t21:18z


 * Ditto for the two German GSG 9 men that died near Fallujah. Germany is against the war, no part of the coalition, and the GSG 9 is in charge of security for personell and property of the German embassy. Their convoy was aparently mistaken for an US convoy and attacked. For detals see GSG 9 -- Chris 73 | Talk 22:53, 4 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Pedant)I have a list of over 50 security companies which are both based in the US, and have or 'have had' personnel in Iraq. I think that the 18,000 figure could quite well be said to be true, GIVEN that they are called security personnel. as opposed to janitors and also as opposed to mercenaries... some of those may very well be, for instance, janitors working for security firms and mercenaries employed by security firms but perhaps actually, for instance, reading poetry to children, but I think in the interests of strict accuracy they might more profitably be called security personnel...


 * I think that most people in Iraq are armed right now, unless they are the most hardcore of pacifists, or unable to hold or wield a weapon for some reason.Pedant 01:31, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

Review issues
(1) Though the subject is inherently controversial, does this article achieve a sufficiently neutral POV?

(2) Since it lists death tolls that change often, it needs to be updated regularly, or it starts to look dated. Is there a standard wikipedian way of handling this kind of thing, besides the tag? Would this prevent it from qualifying as a featured article? Neow 18:39, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

The only way to update is to have someone come around and do it. The fact that it can never be current for more than a day or so at a time might make it harder to become a featured article, but I don't think it could be a total block up - if the article was good enough. -Litefantastic 20:19, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Would be best to state any moving-target figures as "as of 2004-xx-xx, xxxxx dead..." etc. So that, whether they are 'out of date' or not, they can at least be accurate.Pedant 01:36, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

(3) Current and Latent Illnesses?  Maybe this is explored more fully somewhere, or has been discussed and dismissed, but should the article have a separate section, or sections, that discuss projected levels of illnesses resulting more immediately from the fighting and its aftermath, as well as latent/future cases of illnesses, both mental and physical? Latent post-combat diseases often create significant, long-term, public health and veteran impacts. Obviously, many of the same types of impacts would affect non-combatants, etc.

A range of estimates/projections could be presented based on current information, as well as on past experiences with armed conflicts.

This issue is NPOV and a necessary factual element in properly planning for post-conflict veteran and health-care needs in the US and other coalition countries, as well as in Iraq.

--DBK 15:38, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * A fine idea, but we can only present information about this issue if someone finds it. Have you seen any? This article is one of the few I've seen on this kind of subject, but the only actual number it gives is that 16% of Iraq war veterans suffer from PTSD or depression. I guess at least that fact could be added to this article. Neow 17:30, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * more info on this is available as time goes on, I think any info on casualties, past/present/future belongs here, if the info is available from a reliably accurate sourcePedant 01:36, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)


 * I do have an NPOV concern about the article, I think the article would gain an additional sense of history and proportion if the death rates were extended to include the years prior to 2003 at least a point signficantly before the first US invasion of Iraq. 66.92.17.35 23:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Not sure how that's relevant, let alone POV. Iraq does have its own historical article, after all. []. I wouldn't expect the article on deaths from the Holocaust to include a section on death rates of European Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals at a point signficantly before WWII. Gzuckier 15:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Who is to blame?
Any discussion of war casualties invites the question of whose fault they are. Opinions about this vary as widely as the casualty estimates themselves.

Some, particularly those who accept the Bush administration's contention that Saddam Hussein's regime was an imminent threat to global security, viewed the war as the only effective way to confront this threat. They take comfort in the idea that removing Saddam from power has averted his continued ability to cause untold suffering and deaths among the people of Iraq, and they would tend to ascribe the blame for any and all casualties involved to Saddam himself, reasoning that his regime was so corrupt and oppressive that it compelled decisive action to thwart it.

Others, particularly those who viewed the war as illegal or unjustifiable, believe the war has established a dangerous precedent, sanctioning preemptive strikes by nations acting without UN authorization against enemies that do not pose an imminent threat. They would contend that the Bush administration, as the prime mover behind an unjustified war, is to blame for anyone who has died as a result.

Yet another view would be to reserve judgment as to whether the casualties of this war can be justified, recognizing that it may be decades before it will be clear whether the people of Iraq will ultimately be better off, and that it can never be known whether more Iraqis would have been killed by Saddam's regime, had it stayed in power, than have been killed as a result of the war.

Whatever one's perspective, the fact that many lives have already been lost in this war is indisputable and tragic, and the gravity of the war cannot be justly comprehended without giving full consideration to just how many human lives it has claimed.

The above essay, being entirely POV, needs to be attributed to one or more advocates:
 * I wrote this and expected when I added it that it would start a flurry of revision for NPOV, but to my surprise, nobody ever changed it.


 * I see that it's not NPOV enough, but I do think something like this (perhaps just a paragraph addressing the issue and linking to an article on the subject?) needs to stay here, just to acknowledge the elephant in this article's living room. Neow 01:38, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * Who says that "the fact...is tragic"? (Not that I disgree! But even POV I personally agree with is still someone's Point Of View)
 * Good point, but why not jump in and fix it instead of just deleting the whole section - maybe you'd like to move that paragraph to be included in the views of those who oppose the war? I'd be happy to see this whole section rewritten to be more NPOV, but I'm not the one who could do that effectively.


 * The claim that "it can never be known whether more Iraqis would have been killed by Saddam's regime" is an opinion, and is part of a commonly-given argument against the invasion that toppled him (by the way, I opposed the invasion - really!!)
 * So feel free to change "recognizing" to "because they believe" or whatever.


 * The claim that Bush, his staff or his supporters "tend to ascribe the blame for any and all casualties involved to Saddam himself" is unsupported conjecture. Did Rumsfeld say "It's not our fault 60 thousand Iraqis died"? (If he did, I'd be the first to want to nail him for such a callous remark!)
 * The claim was not about Bush or his staff, but about "some who accept the Bush administration's contention...", and I know at least one such person who has asserted that opinion, so this is just reporting a true fact about what some think. Maybe the attribution needs to be made more explicit?

Please help me 'find a home' for the above essay. Should it go in Views of the 2003 Iraq War, or what? --Uncle Ed 20:24, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Your points are all well taken, but why not just fix them instead of summarily deleting the whole section, thereby inserting what appears to be your own meta-POV that it doesn't belong in this article? Neow 01:38, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't delete it. Deleting, in Wikipedia, refers to removing the information completely. I moved it. Moving, in Wikipedia, refers to a cut and paste operation, where the info is preserved. The article and its talk page are considered a unit; so I just moved it within the unit.


 * Oh, really? So do I have your go-ahead to go edit, say, Holocaust and just "move" the section on Revisionists and deniers into its talk page, explaining that it was out of place, and if anyone complains, well, Uncle Ed says an article and its talk page are considered a unit, so what's the problem? (Rhetorical, answer not required.) Come on, most talk pages are just a jumble of mostly irrelevant comments on things the article used to say. The article itself is the only thing most readers will care to look at.

Your point about why didn't I just fix it, is well taken. I have kept my eye on this page, with a view to fixing it as soon as I could. Your detailed comments above have finally given me enough insight to fix the passage. So I'm putting this task on my to-do list. Fair enough? --Uncle Ed 14:23, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Glad to hear it! Neow 19:32, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The essay begins with a title which expresses a point of view. It says, "Who is to blame?" This implies that something blameworthy has happened, which is a moral judgment. NPOV policy at Wikipedia forbids expressions of moral judgment as statements of fact. That's why there's no Nazi genocide or atrocites committed by Saddam Hussein article. Some people even dispute, rather energetically, that the Holocaust happened. So (last time I checked) the Wikipedia says only that "most Western historians" say it did and that "many others" say it didn't. There is an article on holocaust denial, I think, which covers this dispute in depth.

As for the essay (which I moved here for repair), it belongs I think in the context of moral arguments about the 2003 Iraq war. There are several articles touching on moral aspects, and they haven't been well organized yet. Every few months, I've taken a crack at it. But as an on-going event which is the biggest point of disputed in one of the most hotly contested political contests in the history of the free world (take a breath, Ed!) -- it's going to be hard to sort it all out quickly.

It would be a good start to identify the sources of these views:
 * The war is all Saddam's fault. Who says that?
 * The US-led campaign to toss Saddam out was justified. Who says that? Bush, I guess, but who else?
 * Did anyone say that tossing Saddam out makes up for the "tragic" deaths of civilians or others? What precisely have proponents of the coalition military campaign said about casualties? Do they lump together military and civilian? Do they rejoice over body counts (or deliberately ignore them), as implied or outright charged by the Iraq Body Count Project?
 * The war is all Bush's fault. It's "Bush's war". Who says either of these?
 * The US-led campaign to toss Saddam out was NOT justified. Who says this? Saddam, first of all, but who else?
 * Campaigns to get rid of evil dictators require UN "authority". Who says this? Kofi Annan? UN supporters in general? World government advocates in particular?
 * Or, no military action against another sovereign power is EVER justified, unless authorized by the UN. Again, who makes this slightly different claim?

We need to address the issues in more detail, because they are so complex. That's why I thought the essay was inadequate.

I thought it was important enough to preserve. So instead of deleting it, I moved it here for repairs. We are now discussing how to repair it.

However, I don't have enough mental power to repair it by myself. Sometimes I can only identify (not solve) all the problems. --Uncle Ed 14:41, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Good points, especially that the section title implies a POV. Even though many have been killed in this war, some might not care to blame Bush, Saddam, or anyone else for that. Most of your other points are saying that we need to more precisely describe which group of people would express which views.


 * Hmm. I've been sabotaged :) Back when I wrote this essay, the NPOV policy only said that one should ascribe beliefs to people rather than asserting them, and that it's ideal but not required to give lots of background on exactly who thinks what. Now, I read the NPOV policy again, and I see that on August 24th, Cwass -- on his first day of contributing to Wikipedia, yet -- modified it to say that one should identify the person or population one ascribes a belief to rather than just saying "some believe that". That may actually be a good idea. So I'll agree the essay should be left here unless someone can find more citations on who believes what. Neow 19:48, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

I think it's well written, and only slightly POV, but that perhaps it doesn't belong in THIS article... wherever it ends up,though it should be linked to from here.Pedant 01:53, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

Iraqi Body Count
This line sounds a little confusing to me:

"A western group, the Iraq Body Count project, compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths resulting directly from coalition military action."

This, at least to me, sounds a bit misleading, suggestioning that the USA is directly responsible for the deaths. However, a large part of the body count is insurgent attacks on civilians. Perhaps the above line should be changed to something like "...directly from coalition military action and attacks by insurgents"?


 * No. It says resulting directly from coalition military action. And not US military action.
 * Regarding attacks by insurgents IBC clearly states the following: the database includes all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. --217.80.229.161 16:24, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sorry, when I said USA, I meant the USA and the coalition. I still think it sounds a bit misleading when it says "directly from coalition military action." Maybe I'm just dumb, but to the layman, that sounds like "this is the number of people the coalition killed in military operations". Maybe the article could clarify what that means, like "from coalition military action, which includes deaths caused by coalition forces and insurgent forces".
 * --65.161.65.104 07:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pedant)How about:


 * "A non-governmental organization, the Iraq Body Count project, compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths, including any deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations."


 * Comments? Pedant 01:53, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

Nowhere in this article is any mention of a count of deaths of Iraqi police, soldiers and recruits. Nor is there a count of civilian deaths caused by reactionary forces operating in Iraq. I've scoured the internet and find nothing. Maybe these victims are not important?! Also, the statistics at this site would mean more if there were some comparisons (or links to such), such as the number of civilian deaths caused by the Allied D-Day invasion in combating Fascism, that is, to recent wars. According to the above statement, the Allies would have been responsible for French deaths, oddly insinuating that the war against Hitler would have been somehow illegal. Also, the statistics seem for many here more important than the idealogy behind the "insurgents". No interest in that, ....? Whyerd 19:02, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * There's no lack of interest, it's just not the subject of this article. There's lots of info about the insurgents at Iraqi resistance. As for certain counts not appearing in this article, the problem is, they don't exist (as you've seen by scouring the internet). We can't give counts that aren't known. Neow 22:30, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * Also, the article says: "The website doesn't specify which deaths were by caused by coalition military action and which deaths were caused by the insurgency." This isn't entirely true, there is a quite detailed study at, and in particular 37% of the approx 30K casualties are attributed to coalition forces. Ketil

Why is the dubious Lancet study cited at all? Obviously a political ploy rather than a reliable study, it was released the week on the November presidential elections and has so many errors that it is laughable statistics! According to the study itself there is a five percent probability that there were less that 8,000 or more than 194,000 dead. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.7.37.221 (talk &bull; contribs).


 * It is another estimate, and while it is controversial (like all the other estimates), it did make an impact in media etc. Ketil

Original research?

One way to estimate the actual number of Iraqi enemy combatants killed is to consider the results of anonymous surveys of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq done in 2003 as part of a study on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In this study, 48% of the Army soldiers who had served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and 65% of the Marines said that they were responsible for the death of at least one enemy combatant.

Since at least 180,000 Army soldiers and 58,000 Marines served in Iraq in 2003, this means that a minimum of about 124,000 U.S. troops who returned from Iraq by the end of 2003 each believed they had caused the death of one or more enemy combatants. This would not include any deaths caused by Navy or Air Force personnel, such as those that resulted from the bombing missions during the invasion, nor would it include those killed since the beginning of 2004. However, this could reflect either more or less than 124,000 enemy combatants killed, as there are likely cases where one soldier felt responsible for the deaths of multiple Iraqis, where several soldiers each felt responsible for the death of the same person, and where soldiers were incorrect in their belief that anyone had died.

Another way to estimate the actual number of civilians killed is to consider the results of the previously-described anonymous surveys of returning U.S. soldiers. These found that 14% of Army soldiers and 28% of Marines said that they were responsible for the death of a civilian, which means that a minimum of about 41,000 troops who returned from Iraq by the end of 2003 each believed they had caused the death of one or more civilians.

As with the former estimate based on these surveys, this would not include civilian deaths caused by Navy or Air Force personnel, such as those resulting from the bombing missions during the invasion, nor would it include those killed since the beginning of 2004. Again, note that this could reflect either more or less than 41,000 civilians killed, as there are likely cases where one soldier felt responsible for the deaths of multiple Iraqis, where several soldiers each felt responsible for the death of the same Iraqi, and where soldiers were incorrect in their belief that an Iraqi had died.

Slight ambiguity
Great article, so well done to everyone who's worked on it.

Regarding this paragraph:


 * Coalition casualties in the 2003–2004 conflict are now more than triple those of the 1990–1991 Gulf War, and Iraqi fatalities appear to have reached similar levels, though accurate counts of the latter are not available for either conflict. (In the Gulf War, coalition forces suffered around 378 deaths, and among the Iraqi military, tens of thousands were killed, along with thousands of civilians.)

I was not sure if it meant that the Iraqi casualties were roughly equal to their casualities in the first gulf war, or if they too were roughly three times as high. If someone could rephrase this to make it explicit, that would be great. Cheers, fabiform | talk 11:57, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC).


 * That's actually a relic from when this paragraph was up in the intro section of the article. Now that there's a separate section on coalition casualties, the comparison about Iraqi fatalities is out of place. Neow 18:59, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * agreed. If the numbers are provided, one can make their own comparison of the ratios oneself.  And good job on this article!  With many of the related articles, conflicts have prevented an actual functioning live article, not here... again, good job of consensus and editing!!!Pedant 01:53, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

poor article title
"Invasion_and_occupation_of_Iraq_casualties" That is a poorly formed noun phrase, as the most obvious reading is that it was "Iraq casualties" which were invaded and occupied -- of course, this makes no sense, so the reader stumbles, reparses, and figures out what was meant. This is used as a title of a link in at least one place, although it is not shown as the title of this article. I strongly recommend fixing the article title to a more straightforwad phrase, eg, casualties during invasion and occupation of Iraq.

question
I would like to be able to compare casulties to other relevant numbers. For Coalition forces I think this means the total number of servicemen deployed. It would be nice to also have the same numbers for the first gulf war. I also recently heard a female Iraq politician compare the Iraq casualties to the Iran-Iraq war. She said that the Iraq had 1 million killed, 1 million wounded and 1 million displaced. This may be totally inaccurrate, but it does point to the fact that all of these numbers are only relevant in context. Percentages of totals would allow us to compare to Vietnam and the World Wars.

Important distinction needed
Please answer this question. This article states that there were about 1,600 U.S. "casualties". It goes on to state that there were about 11,500 U.S. troops "wounded in action". I'm not sure if this is mistaken, or if you are using a different, but still valid definition of casualty, but I use the word casualty to mean "the total number of dead, wounded, and missing." If you are using another definition that is valid, or if I am misreading the information, please tell me. Lou

clarity
I think it is crucial to be clear, for each given number (a) who was killed (civilian, military, or insurgent) (b) who did it (coalition, insurgents, government forces, criminals) and (c) what is the connection (direct action or indirect effects). Without that the numbers are meaningless, particularly for any kind of policy decisions.

The Lancet Study summary reports "excess deaths" which is a brilliant piece of obfuscation... but from the raw data in the study one can derive a lot more specific estimates of violent deaths broken down by who caused them (insurgent, coalition, criminal or unknown). Those are the only meaningful numbers - which are actually quite interesting. With some work, one can ever arrive at a rough breakdown by category of victim.

IraqBodyCount similarly counts "all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent", a different but equally brilliant piece of obfuscation... but again the numbers broken down by category can be obtained from their detailed database.

This is key. Both sources assume that *all deaths* can be blamed on the US/coalition forces, and the assumption is incorporated into the way they count. They make no distinction between, for example, civilians killed by insurgents (for which the sole responsibility lies with the insurgents) and insurgents killed by US or Iraqi troops (which at least some of us would consider to be a *good thing*).

I'd like some comments on this. In a bit, I will go through and add explanatory notes about what each number includes, as appropriate. I will also pull the detailed data out of the Lancet study. There are a few other sources that should be added if they are not there yet - the PDA study and the AP morgue survey. ObsidianOrder 18:42, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adjusted fatality numbers?
What's all this about internal memos in the Pentagon stating that the death toll for American soldiers is around 9,000? It seems that this number accounts for all soldiers who were wounded in Iraq but died either in an other country or en route.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?


 * Yes, I heard such rumors too. For the official number they're only counting soldiers who clearly died in Iraq because of the conflict. However, the actual number of soldiers who died in a death related to the conflict is much, much higher. The latter involves wounded dying in other countries and other more ambiguous cases. This of course has everything to do with the manipulation of public opinion [User: Guernica, 7 januari 2006, 16:35 CET]

Of course, the Pentegon does count such deaths as a soldier who drowned in a Kuwaiti swimming pool and a guy who was hit by a car in Bahrain.

Czolgolz 17:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Photos
Why do we have just one photo of an Iraqi and one of American coffins? Do you remember the photos of the Iraqi child that was hit in an areal attack and lost its legs and arms? I think it won the world press award or so. I think an article about casualties should include graphical coverage of the harmed civilians. Nameme 14:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

No summary for Iraqi military casualties?
Why does the summary box atop the page have no row for Iraqi military casualties? Also, no total estimate. By the way, I've been trying to keep the numbers up to date at List of wars and disasters by death toll - would be good if they match. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The reason there is no list of Iraqi military casualties is that no agency is keeping track. All we have are vague numbers from the wire services and non-profit organizations. If you have a good source, feel free to add it. Czolgolz 13:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, there are numbers in the article - the lowest estimate of 4,895 is absurdly low, but at least there's a range from that to the high 45,000 estimate. bd2412  T 14:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Factual errors in the current article (as of May 16, 2006)
I'd like to point out several errors I found on this page and propose that they be corrected:

1. "Iraqi Civilians 30,000-100,000 (The lower figure was given by G. W. Bush in a public speech on December 12, 20051; the higher one comes from the Lancet study). Lancet study."

Neither estimate as attributed above is of "Iraqi Civilians".

Bush made this claim in response to the following question, explicitly including non-civilians:

"Q Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators."

THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212-4.html

[Note: since first writing the 30,000 figure has now been changed to 35,161 which compounds the error. Bush did not give that figure as is claimed.]

And the Lancet study was not a civilian study. It was a total "excess deaths" study and did not make any attempt to distinguish civilians from any other Iraqis, or to exclude combatants. The report itself says: "Many of the Iraqis reportedly killed by US forces could have been combatants." And it's lead author has said, "The civilian question is fair. ..some of them may have been combatants, some probably were not... Thus, we are careful to say that about 100,000 people, perhaps far more were killed. We suspect that the vast majority were civilians, but we do not say each and every one of the approximately 100,000 was a civilian."

2. "estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians as of 29 October 2004 [9]"

Same problem as above. This is referring to the Lancet estimate, which is not an estimate of Iraqi civilians.

3. "estimated >36,533 during March-October 2003 ("100% sure" tally by survey in Iraq that assumes paramilitary bodies are not brought to morgues)"

This cryptic citation is referring to a figure from the People's Kifah, an Iraqi political group. These findings were published in August 2003 on the website of a former Wall Street Journal reporter named Jude Wanniski. Clearly it could not have been conducted up to October 2003 if the findings were already made public two months earlier. The time-frame given by the spokesperson was March-June 2003. http://www.wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2855

4. "(These include "all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, car bombings and beheadings by the "insurgents" and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation.")"

This paragraph is taken from an old and outdated description of the Iraq Body Count project, which must have been copied from its website some time ago. What is it doing in this section? It's completely misleading here. IBC is not even referred to in the section where it appears and the context seems to relate it to the three sets of figures which are directly above it, none of which have anything to do with IBC or that paragraph. It is not even currently accurate for the Iraq Body Count website, let alone these other studies, and so should not be there.

Next, the Civilian Casualties section:

5. "(Note that the groups making these estimates all define the word civilian to exclude the various paramilitary forces operating in Iraq as well as the official military forces that existed under Saddam Hussein's regime.)"

There are four "groups" mentioned after this "Note": The Lancet, The UN, People's Kifah and Iraq Body Count. But only Iraq Body Count and People's Kifah use this definition.

The Lancet does not define civilians in this manner because it did not define civilians at all. It was attempting to measure all excess deaths, as discussed above, and so used no definition of civilian.

And the UN study simply does not exist (see #7 below)

6. "One study done by public health experts from the Lancet medical journal published on 29 October 2004, found that an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the US invasion began."

Again, not an "Iraqi civilians" estimate.

7. The study that is asserted to be "The United Nations estimate of civilian casualties" is nothing but the Lancet study again, which has nothing to do with the UN. The footnote is to an interview in which somebody who works for the UN mentions the Lancet estimate. This is a completely erroneous citation.

The only UN estimate of Iraq war deaths that I know of is the UNDP/ILCS study which estimated about 24,000 war deaths as of May 2004. Though, like Lancet, this is also not limited to civilians. I didn't notice any reference to this study on the page, but it should definitely be included in this page: http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/overview.htm

8. "Another study by an Iraqi group, the "People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony," conducted a detailed survey in September and October of 2003 throughout..."

Again, dates are wrong. See #3 above. Also, it might be appropriate to note that very little of the "details" are in the public domain, ie: methodoloy of the survey..etc.

Invasion or Liberation?
I noted that the phrase "Invasion of Iraq" has been changed to "Liberation of Iraq". Whichever term is 'proper' is irrelevant, as there is no article titled 'liberation of Iraq', altough there is one entitled "invasion of iraq" (previously linked to before the change). I'd rather not change it myself, just bringing it up. Perhaps we can just link "liberation" to the "invasion" page, and have the best of both worlds? ;)


 * "Liberation" is obviously a POV. We can test it though. Let's ask the "liberated" and see what they think: "Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers." http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm - 68.44.112.218 05:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Removal of dubious 'interpretation' of casualty studies
I've removed the following paragraph which was recently added:

"The Lancet study and Iraq Body Count project statistics, efforts to document civilian casualties incurred during the Iraq War, are not without technical problems. The Lancet study [27] makes a claim that 50% of the 100,000 estimated casualties are women and children while an in-depth Iraq Body Count (IBC) review of actual reported casualties (the Dossier of Civilian Casualties [28]) showed that 81.7% fatalities were male and 90.4% fatalities were adult. Given the large standard deviation in the Lancet study and the conclusions of the authors that their "results need further verification," other data are essential to inform their conclusions. The IBC study, with its disproportionate number of adult male fatalities, did not find the gender or age distribution suggested by the sampling in the Lancet study, which is relevant in that enemy combatants do not wear uniforms and are predominantly adult males. One proposed explanation is that enemy combatants and Iraqi civilian police personnel are included in casualty reports, distorting the impact of the war on the civilian population [29][30]."

The reasons for this removal include (but are not limited to):

1. False claim: "The Lancet study makes a claim that 50% of the 100,000 estimated casualties are women and children". This is not true. It must be based on this statement in the Lancet report: "28 of 61 killings (46%) attributed to US forces involved men age 15–60 years, 28 (46%) were children younger than 15 years, four (7%) were women, and one was an elderly man."

Thus about 50% women and children. However, these percentages are all based on all the raw data including the outlier Falluja cluster, which was excluded in making the 100,000 estimate. There were only 21 violent deaths used in the 100,000 estimate, and only 9 of these were "attributed to US forces". So there weren't "61 killings" used in the 100,000 estimate to begin with. The 50% claim, as derived from the above description, is not referring to the 100,000 estimate, and has nothing to do with it, but is instead referring mostly to raw data from Falluja which was discarded before making the 100,000 estimate.

2. IBC's Dossier says of its own data that it had age and gender information for only about half the deaths it recorded, so a disparity between IBC's age or gender percentages and those of another source are not necessarily conclusive of anything in particular. If all this data were available for all of IBC's deaths, these percentages might change.

3. The last sentence and a half are pure third-party POV interpretation and editorializing, sourced solely to some opinionated speculations and assertions on a right-wing blog. 68.45.226.214 11:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Restoration of dubious 'interpretation' of casualty studies
I've restored the following paragraph, with modifications, that was recently removed:

"The Lancet study and Iraq Body Count Iraq Body Count project statistics, efforts to count civilian casualties incurred during the Iraq War, are not without technical problems. The Lancet study [27] makes a claim that there were 100,000 excess deaths after the invasion, that “violence was the primary cause of death” during that period, that these violent deaths “were mainly attributable to coalition forces” and that “most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children.” The study implies 50% of the 100,000 estimated excess deaths were women and children [28] while an in-depth Iraq Body Count (IBC) review of actual reported casualties (the Dossier of Civilian Casualties [29]) showed that, in the sub grouping for which gender data are available, 81.7% fatalities were male and 90.4% fatalities were adult. Given the large standard deviation of the Lancet sample and the conclusions of the authors that their "results need further verification," other studies are essential to verify their conclusions. The IBC study, with its disproportionate number of adult male fatalities, did not find the gender or age distribution suggested by the sampling in the Lancet study, which is relevant in that enemy combatants do not wear uniforms and are predominantly adult males. This raises the reasonable explanation that enemy combatants and Iraqi civilian police personnel are included in casualty reports, distorting the impact of the war on the civilian population. [30][31]"

The reasons for the restoration include (but are not limited to):

1. The Lancet study uses inadequate statistics and circular logic to make the case that excess deaths are indeed the cause of coalition action and that women and children are the featured victims. The above paragraph has been modified from the UK Guardian observation that 50% of the 100,000 excess deaths are women and children to include the specific Lancet language.

2. It is irrelevant that the IBC study has gender data for only a sizeable subgrouping in the Dossier study; the n is more than large enough to establish a gender and age distribution that is distinctly at odds with the Lancet study. Since there is no official record of terrorists killed, the age and gender data in casualty studies are relevant.

3. To call a source a "right-wing blog" reveals the bias of the previous editor. IBC is as strongly left leaning, as are the Lancet authors, making the political orientation irrelevant.

hey when you say that lancet is strongly left leaning do you mean lancet is 'one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world' just need clarification

4. The statistics used in the Lancet study are appalling, and it is sophistry that these statistics and various euphemisms ("excess deaths") are used to indemnify the authors from the consequences of stating that the coalition is killing thousands and thousands of women and children, which is how the study is and has been used.


 * This is all just POV. "Lancet study uses inadequate statistics and circular logic" That the supposed difference in age/gender percentages "raises the reasonable explanation" offered is not a fact. It's just your opinion, and the opinion of the right wing blog you cite. And this is all used to convey the POV and unsubstantiated claim that 'insurgents' are being counted as civilians. It's selectively choosing a particular POV sourced from a right wing blogger's editorial giving his POV. And there's nothing at all special about calling it a "right wing blog". That seems to be just a fact. Look at the rhetoric: "The casualty distortions detailed above demonstrate the lengths to which anti-war liberals will go to invalidate the humanitarian success of the coalition intervention." It says its mission is that it "remains committed to keeping an accurate tally of the life-preserving effect of the American intervention in Iraq." And it includes an "Iraqi survival counter" which claims to feature the number of Iraqis whose lives have been "saved" by the war. It advertises for "The best conservative radio talk show host in America is in the The War Room". It lists: "BRILLIANT THINKERS Thomas Sowell Walter Williams Charles Krauthammer Mark Steyn", conservative right wing pundits all.


 * Come on. If the term "right wing blog" doesn't apply here then nothing applies.68.45.226.214 05:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

This misses the point entirely. The "studies" in question, which are equally biased but quoted throughout Wikipedia and other media outlets as fact,


 * That the "studies" are "biased" is your POV.

do not make an attempt to distinguish between a heart-attack and a killed civilain, between a dead terrorist and a dead baby, yet the total numbers are tossed around as "civilian casualties." It is inaccurate to quote the Lancet study or the Iraq Body Count study (a left-wing web site) without qualifying this lack of attention to factual accuracy.


 * That complaint could only be applicable to the Lancet study. IBC does distinguish all those things. Lancet was a total mortality study, not a civilian study, and so of course it did not strictly distinguish those things. It was trying to measure all excess deaths in Iraq. The page says that it is not just civilians in the description of the Lancet study. If you have a complaint about people calling it a civilian study that would be more appropriate for the criticisms section of the Lancet study's page. It would be pretty tangential for the short description on this page.

The actual casualties - which is the point of the entry (Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003) - is less than the two widely disparate numbers quoted.


 * Aha, now we get right down to it. Really? I've never seen a scratch of evidence to that effect, and have seen mountains of evidence to the contrary. What is your source for that assertion? Another "interpretation" on a blog?

Yet, because User [68.45.226.214] dislikes one source but likes another, he or she ignores this reality. Thus an opportunity is lost to distinguish Wikipedia from the long list of left-wing media sources.

What say others?


 * I suspect most others would say that all you're trying to do here is prostelytize your entirely unsupported POV. If you know of an actual study into Iraqi casualties that supports your POV at all, let's hear of it.


 * "Lancet" (i.e. Hopkins) study is a textbook exercise in advanced epidemiology. I say advanced, because of the use of cluster sampling. It doesn't pretend to be anything else, although it has been trumpeted as many things by others, including unfortunately the Lancet itself in the beginning (i.e. claiming it as civilian deaths, rather than total deaths). The point of the study is simple epidemiology: total increase in total death rate after an event. Be it a war, a change in the speed limit, or an educational campaign to get people to wear condoms. Previous studies of war casualties in the Congo by the same team with the same methodology were greeted as engraved in stone from Heaven, because they did not conflict with US administration posture. If you want to claim the US isn't responsible for babies who die because they can't get simple clean water that they had access to before the war, well that's your opinion. Gzuckier 20:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you want to claim that "simple clean water" was available in Iraq, without having some data or having visited the country, that also is your opinion. It's also an unsourced one.  You might want to look up the numerous studies, left and right, on how Saddam spent incoming money.  You also might want to look up the US expenditures INSTALLING generators and water systems, that are being attacked by insurgents.  If you want to claim that the insurgents aren't responsible for babies who die because they can't get simple clean water that they had access to before the war, well that's your opinion.


 * And medical journals are notoriously unreliable on any subject outside of treatment and infection. And miserable within those fields at times.  They're not an unimpugnable authority by nature of being doctors.Mzmadmike 15:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

New Page listing Individual Casualties
Should there be a page with a list of the names/units of casualties? Then their bios can be put up? Just a thought....

Hal06
 * Are we going to have individual articles on every one of the tens of thousands of persons killed? Some of those articles would be forever stubs - how much can you say about an eight-year-old girl killed along with forty other people at a market bombing? A woman shot at a checkpoint while fleeing her neighborhood? An out-of-business auto mechanic whose house was hit by a stray shell? A twenty-something GI whose only claim to fame is that he was killed by some anonymous roadside bomb outside Tikrit. Casualties of the war are generally not notable (we had a similar discussion about casualties of the attack on the World Trade Center, of whom there were far fewer).  bd2412  T 14:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. CNN.com already lists the names, units, ages, pictures, and causes of death of all the coalition fatalities http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/ and iraqbodycount.org lists what they can about the Iraqi casualties. I say leave things as they are Czolgolz 14:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * We should have the names with basic facts in a tabular format. We could divide the names.  A-G one article, H-P one article, and something along this lines for every nationality.--71.107.197.67 01:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Minimum total casualties = 49,023 49,132
The Lancet study estimated that 30,000 - 100,000 deaths had already occurred by September 2004.


 * Also, the 30,000 figure is not from the Lancet study. It's a figure given by George Bush in late 2005.

This figure does not account for thousands of deaths in the twenty-three months since then. The United Nations estimates that more than 14,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first half of 2006 alone. . Newsweek maintains a highly accurate count which reports 45,017 Iraqi civilian deaths and 2,770 coalition deaths (total of 47,787) as of July 10, 2006..


 * The Newsweek numbers have changed. I wrote this to you on the discussion page of "Summary of casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq":


 * BTW..i just looked at the Newsweek page today, which you had previously used (at just over 45,000 before), and now their total to date is 42,500, which now looks like it follows their stated methodology of using an average of the IBC min/max figures which are now around 40,000min-45,000max. So apparently about 3,000 have come back to life in the last week according to the Newsweek page, or there was some unexplained mistake or something. If you can figure out how that happened let me know. I don't see anything about it on the page. 68.45.226.214 19:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Note that Newsweek's report relies on a figure of 21,090 Iraqi civilian deaths by September 2004, and at least 23,927 additional Iraqi civilian deaths after the Lancet study was published. There were also between 1,236 and 1,605 additional deaths from July 10 to July 30, 2006 between media reports and U.N. estimates of unreported deaths. Therefore, there have been at least 46,253 Iraqi civilian deaths since the beginning of the war, and at least 49,023 total casualties. If the Lancet study is correct, there have been at least 55,163 Iraqi civilian deaths (30,000 as of Sept. 2004, 23,927 from Sept. 30 2004 to July 10, 2006, and 1,236 from June 11, 2006-June 30, 2006), and at least 56,399 total deaths (adding in 2,770 coalition casualties). bd2412 T 15:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Good morning. Per MSNBC and FOX news, 30 deaths on July 31, including murdered bodies found, casualties of suicide bombing in Kurdish-ruled province of Dahuk,; 70 Iraqi civilians killed in attacks on August 1 in Beiji and Baghdad, ; 9 killed on August 2 ; ergo, death toll is now up to at least 49,132. bd2412  T 12:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

New Lancet study
Methods: Between May and July 2006 a national cluster survey was conducted in Iraq to assess deaths occurring during the period from January 1, 2002, through the time of survey in 2006. Information on deaths from 1,849 households containing 12,801 persons was collected. This survey followed a similar but smaller survey conducted in Iraq in 2004. Both surveys used standard methods for estimating deaths in conflict situations, using population-based methods.

Key Findings: Death rates were 5.5/1000/year pre-invasion, and overall, 13.2/1000/year for the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that through July 2006, there have been 654,965 “excess deaths”—fatalities above the pre-invasion death rate—in Iraq as a consequence of the war. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 were due to violent causes. Non-violent deaths rose above the pre-invasion level only in 2006. Since March 2003, an additional 2.5% of Iraq’s population have died above what would have occurred without conflict. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, though the actual numbers have increased each year. Gunfire remains the most common reason for death, though deaths from car bombing have increased from 2005. Those killed are predominantly males aged 15-44 years. '

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf


 * There is a tremendous discrepancy between the Iraq Body Count and the Lancet study. Much of this is probably due to the fact that the IBC uses only media-reported, verified deaths, whereas the Lancet study is an actual estimate.  In addition, the IBC only counts civilian and police deaths.  One might expect the media reporting to be much higher in Baghdad, and this appears to be the case.  Using IBC estimates and 2003 population estimates reported in Wikipedia, violent civilian deaths in Baghdad have totalled 0.429% of the population.  In Diyala, it's 0.139% and in Sala ad Din it's 0.124% -- more than three times less than the Baghdad rate.  Yet the Lancet study found that the total death rate (from all cases) was higher in these regions than in Baghdad (Baghdad between 2-10/1000, Salah ad Din and Diyala, as well as Ninawa and Al Anbar >10/1000).  Note that the highest rates according to the Lancet study, but not the IBC, are in the mainly Sunni regions, where there has been a lot of fighting.  It seems then, that the death rate outside of Baghdad is several times higher than is being reported. 24.68.180.163 06:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * so, an "Actual estimate" is better than a hands on count? And "It seems" is unsourced opinion.
 * I agree the counts may be different elsewhere. But you're not offering any evidence to improve the count.Mzmadmike 15:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

How do we count executions?
Some U.S. soldiers now face the death penalty for murders committed in Iraq... if they are executed, do we count them as casualties of the war? bd2412 T 18:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

No. Casualties only count in theater, or from wounds received in theater. Federal execusions would not count. Czolgolz 18:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That's reasonable. bd2412  T 02:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

US casualties in 1989 same as Iraq?

 * The article currently states that "As a result of the second Iraq war and War in Afghanistan, the total US annual military casualty rate has tripled and returned to its 1989 rate of approximately 1700 casualties per year."
 * Now this claim seems incredible to me, what wars was the US engaged in in 1989 to have a casualty rate of 1,700? (per year?)
 * The referenced site for this information, http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/Death_Rates.pdf, seems to be down (or at-least I can't access it), so this makes me a bit suspicious.
 * What I'm thinking is that whoever put that claim in article is getting confused between Casualties (Killed and Wounded) and Fatalities (Killed only, i.e. death rate). Now the casualty rate may have been 1,700 per year in 1989, but that is not the death rate, and even the death rate in the "war on terror" hasn't been quite that big (though it's close). The Casualty rate for Iraq is far higher that 1,700 per year, if we go by the figures given in the article, it's something like 6,500 per year (dividing 24,996 by 3.8 years (46 months) ).
 * So can we please get some clarification of this claim, or have it removed? --Hibernian 05:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It doesn't make sense to me either. I just deleted it. The info and link is in this section. Maybe someone can make sense of it, or can find out what was meant to be said. --Timeshifter 06:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Dec. 25, 2006. Iraq War. US death total equals 9/11 death toll.
An anonymous editor added this paragraph below to the article. Here is the revision difference. I took it out for discussion here on the talk page. December 25 was actually the day US deaths met and surpassed total 9/11 deaths of 2973. Search on Google News to see. --Timeshifter 07:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * On December 27, 2006, the total number of US troops killed in the conflict surpassed the number of victims killed in the 9-11 attacks (2,975). This may not seem directly relevant at first, in part because citizens of many other countries all over the world perished in 9-11. Nonetheless, it is an important milestone, because in the very early days of the war, when US casualties still numbered in only the low hundreds, defenders of the action would at the time argue that the human cost of the war for the US was insignificant compared to that of 9-11. This argument in the early days of the war was actually used to imply (somewhat fallaciously) not only that Iraq was complicit in the attacks, but that the war was somehow "worth it" as an act of revenge because a much greater loss had already been inflicted on the US. On December 27, 2006, this officially became no longer the case: the human cost of Iraq for the US was now greater than that suffered on 9-11.

The stats are 2974 U.S. dead as of December 25, 2006. Surpassing the 2973 total dead on 9/11. Wikipedia needs verifiable sources. Here are some media articles found with a Google News search:
 * http://news.google.com/news?q=2973
 * http://news.google.com/news?q=2973+christmas --Timeshifter 07:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, that was a typo... would you consider re-adding it (or some form thereof) but with the substitution of a '5' for the '7'? 70.16.247.100 07:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a quote from Newsday to the article. I can't put what you wrote in the article because it is an unsourced opinion, and wikipedia does not allow that in an article. Unless you can find something similar in a media article. That would be verifiable, sourced info. But it would have to be put in the article in the Wikipedia NPOV way of X says Y. --Timeshifter 08:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Site with running total of Iraqi deaths
I deleted this from the article:


 * There is a website keeping a running total of total Iraqi deaths based on the same rate of deaths as the 2006 Lancet study. As of January 1, 2007 it says 734,087 Iraqis have died due to the war.

"Unknown News. Casualties in Afghanistan & Iraq".

They are making several mistakes in their running total. They are adding more deaths starting in October 2006 instead of July 2006 when the Lancet study period ended. Also, they are adding 30,000 more Iraqi military deaths. The 2006 Lancet study included all excess Iraqi deaths due to the war. Both civilian and military. --Timeshifter 22:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Couple of areas for cleanup
1. In the section Casualties caused by criminal and political violence, the quoted AP article starting "In Baghdad, a city of about 5.6 million, 4,279 people" is repeated at length, and verbatim, at the start of the section. It is also repeated verbatim in the Undercounting section. Just sounds repetitive and either the quote or (I'd suggest) the preceeding text drawn from it need to be trimmed or reworded to be less specific. Attriti0n 05:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree about the section called "Casualties caused by criminal and political violence." I have just shortened and clarified the section. The undercounting section only has one short paragraph. --Timeshifter 06:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Nightline Controversy
2. Is the Nightline Controversy section really relevant to anything ? The only controversy would appear to be a news program wanted to not report news but instead read out names of the dead for an hour and got pulled. If this wasn't a predictable violation of assumed rules about political statements, would it still be a "controversy" if it was pulled for just being boring as hell and uninformative episode of a news program which was not delivering what it was supposed to ?

Whatever you think of this program being aired/pulled, it doesn't introduce any understanding to the topic of casualties in Iraq. In the only way it is relevant, that it was a reference to the number of serviceman killed, it wouldn't appear to be any different to PBS newshour's nightly photos of dead soldiers or cyrptome's list of the dead. Do these need to be added too, with no benefit to the article, or should this Nightline section be removed without any apparent loss?

I don't want to edit these things out myself because there's already a lot of debate here over what should and shouldn't be here. However these two look like they need fixing. Attriti0n 05:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I put your comments and mine in a separate section here on this talk page called "Nightline Controversy" to avoid confusion.


 * I find the Nightline Controversy to be legitimate, sourced, notable, historical info about casualties. Specifically about some of the political controversies that surround reporting on casualties. I find it to be highly relevant to the topic of this wikipedia page on Iraq War casualties. --Timeshifter 06:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * How is it relevant or useful info though ? There was no content in the intended broadcast other than the names of the dead. Well chuck in a link to the pentagon or cryptome death lists and you've got all that info which this program intended to provide but actually didn't.
 * As for reporting there have been more than a few media reports which deal solely with the casualty estimates, comparisons, analysis, informed comment etc. You cannot really argue that Nightline's intended reading of a list of names rates as anything meaningful or useful compared to what's left out of this.
 * I do believe that people planting little flags and crosses in lawns to illustrate the dead have also caused controversy. It's not like adding accounts of those is going to add any understanding to the topic.
 * If the idea is just to provide an illustation that the amout of dead in a war is a controversial topic that doesn't need illustrating to start with. If the idea is that the Iraq war is a controversial topic in the US then Wikipedia is going to need to buy some more servers just to host this entry if each example is worth 2 paragraphs. Attriti0n 10:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * We can start more wikipedia pages if needed. Look at Iraq War and the many wikipedia pages linked from it. There are several wikipedia pages linked from here too. Lancet, IBC, etc.. There are all kinds of controversial issues covered by wikipedia concerning the Iraq War. People's activities such as "planting little flags and crosses in lawns" is notable also if it is reported by the media. Especially if it is controversial. --Timeshifter 10:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Are there missing numbers at the bottom? Like the iraqui death numbers near the references section. Thanks, Brusegadi 23:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not understand what you are asking about. Can you clarify? And should this be a new talk section? Is your question in reference to the Nightline talk section? --Timeshifter 08:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Dead link
A graph of the monthly coalition casualties in Iraq in External links Art LaPella 17:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * thanks. I just removed that link. --Timeshifter 13:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

some cleanup required

 * Something's wrong with the references, e.g. click on [1] or [2] in the summary box at the top. i don't have time to look up what's wrong right now. Boud 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I just updated the IBC info and a couple IBC links. The Lancet links seem to be working fine still.--Timeshifter 13:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, i don't understand this sentence (which also gives a wrong link): "The Lancet study's excess mortality rate figure of 14.2 deaths/1000/year as of June 2006 corresponds to approximately 370,000 deaths in 2006.[5]" 370,000 deaths/year at a constant rate (14.2 deaths/1000/year) would imply that from end March 2003 to end March 2006, there'd be about 3*370,000 = 1,110,000 deaths up to March 2006, plus about 90,000 deaths from April/May/June 2006, making 1.2 million up to June 2006. That is not what the 2nd Lancet study claimed, so something is wrong here. Boud 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Someone else wrote that. I agree it is unclear. The rate of excess deaths increased year to year. It wasn't 14.2 deaths/1000/year throughout the war. I am going to remove that extrapolation. --Timeshifter 13:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * A third point: there is one extension of the Lancet study which gives the present (July? 2007) estimate as a little over a million, and there's a British survey (totally independent of Lancet) which gives about 1.2 million with a Poisson error of about 100,000 or so - the Poisson error is not published by them so by wikipedia principles we can't cite the uncertainty. i'll look these up later if nobody else gets them. Boud 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * i found them now anyway:
 * http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
 * http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78
 * Boud 12:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I will need to come back later to check out those pages when I have more time.--Timeshifter 13:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I added the Opinion Research Business (ORB) estimate of 1,220,580 violent deaths to the summary template. I found a Los Angeles Times article, and an article from The Observer.--Timeshifter 20:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

oh wow
i'm amazed this article isn't locked and that the internet can remain civil on an issue such as this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.5.225.172 (talk) 15:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It just goes to show that people on both sides of the issue are capable of rational discussion. Wikipedia rarely locks articles. Czolgolz 15:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect future date specified
The text below specifies a future date for the related news article.

"In November 2006 Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said that since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion between 100,000 and 150,000 people have been killed.[12][11][72][73] The Taipei Times reported: "Al-Shemari said on Thursday [Nov. 9, 2007] that" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.238.220 (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I changed the date to 2006.--Timeshifter 04:59, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Wounded higher than official Pentagon tally?
According to this survey of brain injured vets, some 20,000 are not counted as combat casualties. "More than 150,000 troops "may" have suffered head injuries in combat" yet the official total is only 4,471! Wayne (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I added some info to the article about it.--Timeshifter (talk) 14:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone should add the latest survey numbers
Hi the NEJM just published a new paper that provides an estimate of violent deaths

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMsa0707782

It should probably be added to this article, and to the article discussing the Lancet survey. LetterRip (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Here it is:
 * Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
 * Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War --Timeshifter (talk) 01:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

404 link.
Anyone keeping track of this article should like to refer to Kingturtle 15:42 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

Contractor Casualities {423 Killed/1 missing}
The Following website lists 423 Contractors killed {listing is of All nationalities-List incomplete}. The following are listed as "Americans" in following catagories: -
 * American-168
 * AMerican---1 {Egyptian Emigrant}
 * American---1 {Iraqi Emigrant}
 * American---1 {Sudanesse}
 * American?--1
 * In addition a KBR truck driver is missing as of 2004. See —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.129 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 28 April 2008


 * That first website is a geneological website, nothing to do with the war. Czolgolz (talk) 14:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Massive IP edits
I reverted a lot of IP edits...the author made some valid points, but didn't back up a single one with a reference. Czolgolz (talk) 04:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Friendly Fire
There should be a section on Casualties from Friendly fire. Ijanderson977 (talk) 20:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

"both less accurate and less reliable"
A sentence in the opener reads, "Regarding the Iraqis, however, information on both military and civilian casualties is both less accurate and less reliable." First of all, what is the difference between accuracy and reliability in this context? Second, it seems from the article that neither one is really what is meant. It's the accuracy of the various reports which is in question. I think it might be more accurate to replace the words "accurate" and "reliable" with "precise" and "consistent." The various reports are all rough estimates (less precise) and disagree with one another (less consistent). Thoughts? Mycroft7 (talk) 20:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I changed it. I did not write that sentence to begin with though, I believe. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 14:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Something is less accurate if it hits the wrong mark, it is still reliable if it consistently hits that other mark. JoshNarins (talk) 13:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !
In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :) DumZiBoT (talk) 22:16, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "medialens" :
 * "The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq". Sept. 18, 2007. Media Lens.
 * "The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq". Sept. 18, 2007. MediaLens.
 * "nprchart" :
 * "NPR: The Toll of War". National Public Radio's website bar chart of various death toll estimates.
 * "NPR: The Toll of War". National Public Radio.
 * "lancet2006" :
 * 2006 Lancet study. PDF file of Lancet article: . By Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts. The Lancet, October 11, 2006.
 * 2006 Lancet study. PDF file of Lancet article: . By Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts. The Lancet, October 11, 2006.
 * "LAtimes" :
 * "War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000". Louise Roug and Doug Smith. Los Angeles Times. June 25, 2006.
 * "Poll: Civilian Death Toll in Iraq May Top 1 Million". By Tina Susman. Sept. 14, 2007. Los Angeles Times.


 * The bot is now working perfectly! It cleaned up some duplicate references, and added some titles to references that were missing titles. In its above bot report the bot left the above reference links for human intervention. I took care of the duplicates listed in the above bot report. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:37, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories on U.S Army casualties
Please see this diff: and this page version:

Can someone else clean up the recently-added section titled "Conspiracy theories on U.S Army casualties." I don't have time right now. Some of the info can be incorporated elsewhere in the article. For example; the contractor deaths info. Also, the brain injuries info. "Conspiracy" does not seem like a good choice as a word for this section heading. None of this type of info in this section is new. It has all been covered in the media, though not as much as many people would like. I believe all the sourced info can be put in existing sections of the article. Maybe a "Minimization of casualty numbers" section can be created. I don't know. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Define "excess"
Hi. As a layman, this article would be much more imformative to me if it defined "excess death". Does this mean civilian death, deaths that wouldn't occur without war (ie not cancer/old age/etc), or what? Thanks! 58.172.80.154 (talk) 02:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Iraqi Security Forces (aligned with Coalition)
Concerning this section:
 * Casualties of the Iraq War

I am not sure List of Iraqi security forces fatality reports in Iraq is accurate. The page says it is a partial list.

I think it is better to use one reliable source (WP:RS) for the total for the whole war. I don't think it is a good idea to break it down by year here unless we find a reliable source.

The last version with many references is here:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War&oldid=252940857

Do any of references give a total for the whole war? Are there any reliable sources that give a total or estimated total for the whole war?

For now I linked to List of Iraqi security forces fatality reports in Iraq as a partial list. We can link to other sources if we can find them. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:18, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

It is a partial list but I have been working on it for the past few months and am close to the point where we can call it a comprehensive list just like the List of insurgents killed in Iraq. I have only the reports for the last three months of 2007 to go through and we will have a clear picture on the most realistic number of security forces dead since the start of the war.89.216.236.45 (talk) 06:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Using the end of major combat as end to the war is misleading
The 2003 invasion of Iraq is still underway and it is misleading to stop the number of casualties at the point where George W Bush declared an end to major combat. As it turned out, major combat had not really started. Surely, it is not the chief spin doctor who declares when a war starts and ends. It is the war itself that defines the start and the end. It is also misleading to suggest that the United States has won the war when it is about to lose it.

The section that portrays the war as having ended at the end of "major combat" should be deleted from this article or reworded.

JG Estiot (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * These are entirely different phases of the war, and it's entirely appropriate that we differentiate between them. There were different sets of enemies from one phase to the next.  That's particulary noteworthy if you think the U.S. could have lost the war at any point in the last few years.  The war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces was essentially over at the end of major combat.  The fighting that continued after that point was by insurgents, many of whom were also Saddam Hussein's enemies.  Had Bush given up, the victory would not have been Saddam's.
 * It's also worth remembering that the end of major combat was a firm point when the war could have been completely over if enough critics really wanted it to end. The people who first claimed to oppose the war were, in effect, cheering on those who kept fighting.  Most of that fighting wasn't even targeting U.S. forces.  The end of major combat truly was an important marker.
 * -- Randy2063 (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Seriously
I am sorry this isnt directly related to the format of the article but I have a question. Can the casualties of Iraqis really be that high? I am sick to my stomach after reading that. My goodness. Certainly that has to be a mistake, or propoganda of some sort. I cant think of any other word but 'hell.' If that is true, I am ashamed. Please tell me it is just a joke or not that high. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.221.242 (talk) 05:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * People have to make up their own minds. Wikipedia just presents the various viewpoints in a WP:NPOV way. Personally, after much study of hundreds of references, I believe the multiple surveys that show the number of deaths to be in the hundreds of thousands, or even over a million. But wikipedia talk pages are not political forums, and so I leave it there. Please see WP:TALK. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The most likely death toll is around the range of 200 thousand, with most of those deaths happening between early 2005 until summer 2007. The opinion surveys of Iraqis that result in estimates closer to a million, i.e. ORB & Lancet, are impossible to verify because we have no idea how many of the respondents were answering accurately, honestly, or were influenced by pollsters. The Lancet claimed to have seen death certificates in most cases, but this claim was disputed when crosschecked with the total numbers of death certificates issued by the Iraqi Health Ministry (see IBC resonse to Lancet 2006 survey). So the only thing that we can know reliably is that at least 100 thousand died as a result of violence. Death tolls over a million are not supported by any hard evidence, and are rather implausible unless one believes that the overwhelming number of Iraqi casualties were never taken to or processed by any Iraqi doctors, hospitals, or morgues (we would need to believe that most iraqis killed were simply buried by relatives without any record being made). The real problem is the lack of impartial data that is verifiable yet comprehensive. The whole subject is entirely dependent on one's attitude toward the war itself, in that if you opposed it then 50 thousand is too many, and if you supported it then a million is justified.Walterego (talk) 15:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * FWIW: A ratio of 1:4 is a rule of thumb for estimating deaths/casualties.  That's one dead out of every four casualties.  This doesn't mean we'd see three million amputees, were the "one million" figure true, but we'd see a lot, and they're simply not there in those numbers.
 * This kind of thing is nothing new. Nazi propagandists claimed the bombing of Dresden had killed 200,000, and the actual number was a fraction of that.
 * -- Randy2063 (talk) 16:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) It depends on the credibility of the Health Ministry versus the Lancet. A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion of the reported deaths (92 per cent of those households asked to produce one in the Lancet survey).

On February 24, 2009 Morning Edition discussed what a Baghdad central morgue statistics office worker reported to them:

See also: Iraq Family Health Survey. In the end people have to make up their own minds about the credibility of the Health Ministry versus the Lancet. That is what WP:NPOV is all about. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Associated Press estimate
I don't think it should be in the top table. There are many estimates. We don't need them all in the top table. The Associated Press estimate is based on the Iraqi government count. The Iraq Family Health Survey is already in the table, and it was carried out by the Iraqi government.

Counts of death certificates are not the same as surveys. It is more logical to only put the Iraqi government survey in the table.

Iraq Body Count has a higher count anyway, and so the Iraqi government count is much less credible. The Iraq Body Count lists sources for every entry too. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The figure from AP is figures based directly on hospital and morgue data and covering the war up to nearly the present. It is unique information in this regard. The IFHS survey is an extrapolation from a sample done by the WHO and Iraqi ministries covering to June 2006. The two are not substitutes for each other and it is no argument to say one should not be there because the other is. The IBC Count is not higher and your opinion about its credibility is not relevant. This is important information and it should be there.208.120.242.207 (talk) 23:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Please see WP:CALM. Please stop with the "censorship" comments in your edit summaries. All of the info was covered in the sections below. The survey is a higher number than the count, and so it is the more important Iraqi government number. Readers are seeking total casualties, not partial casualty numbers. You need to seek consensus before making major additions to the top table. There has been much discussion about its entries.


 * Also, please stop combining the AP estimate and the government count in the lower table. They are 2 separate casualty estimate totals. So they need to be in 2 separate sections of the table. The AP may use the government count in its estimate, but it goes beyond it, and uses numbers the government has not claimed in its estimate. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll stop saying "censorship" when you stop doing it, not before. And if you keep deleting this stuff I'm going to report you. Your arguments are ridiculous and makes it look like you have another agenda here. As I already said, the IFHS and the AP are not the same thing or substitutes. The fact that one is higher than the other does not make one "more important" or more correct (even if you want to favor high numbers). Moreover, the IFHS is only giving info into 2006. On the issue of sections below, the AP figure is just the HM one with some other information filling out the missing part of the timeline, and comes from the very same article. Your two sections even used the same footnote. One follows from the other so i don't see the reasoning for making them into separate sections.208.120.242.207 (talk) 01:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I did not delete anything. It is in the sections farther down. Normal procedure is to get consensus first for major changes to the lead section of an article. The top table is in the lead section of the article. See WP:LEAD.


 * You can be blocked for continually saying "censorship" and "agenda." See WP:AGF. Placement in another part of the article is not censorship. It is formatting, and prioritizing what goes in the lead section. See WP:LEAD and WP:CIVIL.


 * As to "IFHS and the AP are not the same thing or substitutes." That was my point. The IFHS is a survey, and has had significant media coverage. It has slightly more credibility due it getting some help from the World Health Organization in its tabulation, even though the WHO depended on the Health Ministry to collect and pass on the survey results.


 * The AP estimate and latest government count are both counts, and have had much less coverage in the news. Anyway, previous Health Ministry counts have been shown to be frauds by major news organizations. See the previous talk section. So the government-based counts are ignored for the most part in media coverage. Significant viewpoints go in the lead, and not the minor viewpoints. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Look, I get it. You "believe the multiple surveys (sic) that show the number of deaths to be in the hundreds of thousands, or even over a million," and you're trying to suppress info that doesn't help you lead wiki readers to share this belief. But this is important and contemporary info, even if you'd like to limit this to "surveys" that are years old because they give you numbers you readers to believe. If some unnamed "previous" HM counts have been "shown to be frauds" by some news org I haven't seen the show. But regardless, this was a secret tally of death certificates which the HM did not want released that was leaked by an official to AP, so whatever you might be talking about may be irrelevant. The Lancet survey has been shown to be a fraud over and over, but it's still in the table. All the sources have their proponents and detractors. And appealing to what has a lot of media coverage isn't a very good argument for you, as it gives you away. The media rarely ever talks about the Opinion Business survey and there's even a whole section on its page devoted to people complaining that it's ignored in media coverage. Yet you're not trying to censor that one, and probably added it yourself (without seeking "consensus" first, because adding it is not a "major change"). So your arguments here don't hold up and look like a lame attempt to justify your censorship.208.120.242.207 (talk) 13:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

"Censorship"
Crying out "censorship" will get you nowhere. You note that another editor reverted your changes. Everything is not some kind of grand conspiracy or plot to censor info. Here just below is what I pointed you to previously:

On February 24, 2009 Morning Edition discussed what a Baghdad central morgue statistics office worker reported to them:


 * The number of deaths the morgue registers never corresponds with numbers from the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Interior. "They do it on purpose," he says. "I would go home and look at the news. The ministry would say 10 people got killed all over Iraq, while I had received in that day more than 50 dead bodies just in Baghdad. It's always been like that — they would say one thing but the reality was much worse."

"Though Numbers Unclear, Iraqi Deaths Touch Many". by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro. Feb. 24, 2009. Morning Edition. National Public Radio.

The Orb survey has gotten more coverage since it first came out. The Lancet survey has gotten a ton of coverage. The Iraqi government has had various estimates over the years, and the latest AP version of the government estimate is just another variation of several government estimates and surveys. Shall we also put in the survey result from D3 Systems? Their survey tabulations got 650-700,000 households with at least one member physically harmed by the violence.

See "D3 Systems poll in early 2007" section of the article. We can't put everything in the top table. It is a judgment call. Maybe we can put several more entries in the top table. From both the high and low end for the number of casualties.

I added the AP and D3 estimates to the top table for now. For discussion, and as something tangible to look at for further ideas. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:38, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I would not have said "conspiracy" before, when it was just you. But when you start conscripting friends behind the scenes to help you censor info, then it is fair to say conspiracy. Your other comments here are either wrong or irrelevant. The AP figure is not a "variation of several government estimates and surveys". It has nothing to do with any "survey" first of all. The closest thing it might be called is an update to the numbers given by the Los Angeles Times in 2006: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0625-03.htm, which combine HM and Baghdad morgue numbers, apparently aslo using deaths certificates. We could add this to the table as well, but the AP is more recent, so the AP one is the better choice for the table. Also, you keep posting this, um, conspiracy theory, by the unnamed Baghdad morgue official, citing unnamed TV broadcasts giving some daily counts, given by the HM and/or the IM (also not clear which). Maybe he's right about those, maybe not. If you look at the LA Times article the HM tally of that time was not including the numbers of the Baghdad morgue. They had to be summed together for the Times article. It said the HM provided 18,933 from its tally of hospitals, while the Baghdad morgue separately provided 30,204 from its tally of deaths it handled. If the HM was giving those figures based on those hospital tallies out on some kind of per day basis on TV, it would generally look too low to a Baghdad morgue employee who (wrongly) assumed that these figures should reflect the numbers coming into his morgue, and who might leap to conspiracy theorizing when that is not the right conclusion. But this does not apply to the AP figures anyway, since it includes morgue figures like the earlier Times.208.120.242.207 (talk) 20:11, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * When I said "variation of several government estimates and surveys" I was referring to the previous Iraqi government counts, estimates, and surveys. The Iraqi government carried out the Iraq Family Health Survey. Ali al-Shemari (earlier Iraqi Health Minister), concerning war-related deaths (civilian and non-civilian), and deaths from criminal gangs, said that since the March 2003 invasion between 100,000-150,000 Iraqis had been killed through November 2006. The latest count of death certificates (which they haven't provided for viewing) is just one in a series of counts, estimates, and surveys. None of which are credible. But readers will have to decide for themselves.


 * National Public Radio interviewed the Baghdad morgue worker. Nice try on the spin. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm aware that you were conflating everything that any parts of the Iraqi government had ever had any involvement with, regardless of whether it is a survey involving other parties who made the estimate (WHO), a count of death certificates, or just a guess, and even if they have nothing to do with the AP figures. And I'm aware that you hold a very strong "belief" about the credibility of any of these. This "belief" shines through all your edits. And I already know that NPR did the interview with the morgue worker. Can't tell why it matters who did the interview or why you think this justifies your personal attack ("nice try on the spin.").208.120.242.212 (talk) 17:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "lame attempt to justify your censorship" --Timeshifter (talk) 09:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

2 sections for 2 estimates
The AP estimate and the latest Iraqi government estimate should be in 2 different sections of the lower table. In addition it might be good to also have a more detailed section for the AP info. Farther down in the article. You added a lot of info about the AP estimate. I copied all the info you added. The detailed info is in the section currently called "Associated Press and Health Ministry. More information."

So now everything you added to the article remains in the article, I believe. Including the AP info in the top table. There are now more numbers at the top, and people will just have wade through it all, and come to their own conclusions. Nothing was hidden before. It just wasn't in the lead section. Lead sections can get really long if care is not taken. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Remove all summary tables except for one?
At the top of the article is this:

"This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
 * It is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. Tagged since July 2009.
 * It may need copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. Tagged since July 2009.
 * It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Tagged since July 2009.

I think we should get rid of the table format of the article. It was useful before, but now it is unwieldy. The "Overview" tables and "Additional statistics for the Iraq War" could be converted to prose paragraph form, and article headings, fairly easily just by removing the table outlines.

If we want a very concise summary table (like the top one) we should put it farther down away from the lead section, in my opinion. It should include all the estimates and counts. This way people have to think for themselves, and that is one thing WP:NPOV is about. We present the data in the form of X says Y, and the readers decide what to make of it. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This tag at the top of the article claiming "multiple issues" was added, without any explanation, by an editor called 'Garden' yesterday (12 July, 2009). Since the article has not changed in any significant way for a long time it doesn't make much sense why it should get flagged as such now and it would have been better for the editor to bring up his or her points in the discussion. A drive-by flagging by an editor who doesn't seem to have edited the page before, and with no explanation, doesn't seem helpful or something people who do edit the page should jump for. IMO, Garden should first try editing the page to handle whatever issues he or she might have. I also find it interesting that suddenly Timeshifter wants to move the lead table and bury it somewhere down the page. It was fine for months/years when it included fewer sources, weighted toward those he "believes", and was in fact added by him with the fewer sources. Now that it provides a couple more options than the ones he favors, it is supposedly preventing readers from thinking for themselves. This is not an interest in NPOV. It is a recognition that an effort to POV-push no longer works as well as the pusher wanted, and the pusher now deciding it's better to abandon it and start anew.208.120.242.212 (talk) 17:48, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * User:Garden is an admin. I tried to balance the POVs in the top chart. It was balanced before, and I tried to keep it balanced. I am happy with the old balanced 4 entries, or the new balanced 6 entries that includes the AP and D3 info.


 * I now think though that it is better to just remove the top table altogether to avoid all this fighting about what goes in the top chart. Just list them all in a concise-format list or chart farther down. I can live without that though. In any case though, I think that the overview charts farther down should be changed to prose format. Info is currently split up into too many locations in the article.


 * As for this D3 calculation that you deleted: "At the 2005 census there were a total of 4,050,597 households.[13] 17% would be 688,601 households."


 * There is this: ABC News reported: "One in six says someone in their own household has been harmed."


 * I made a straightforward calculation. See: Attribution: "Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source. It should be possible for any reader without specialist knowledge to understand the deductions." --Timeshifter (talk) 10:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source." The number of households is beyond what is in the source (D3), for example. Also, there isn't a 2005 census of Iraq. Then there's all the assumptions involved in extrapolating a percentage of a sample into a national real number, which you are making and D3 chose not to make.208.120.242.212 (talk) 16:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd also advise that your "balance" argument is faulty, as it assumes there must be two opposing "POVs", two "sides" which have an equal number of relevant sources giving figures on these sides. If there's not, then there should not be that kind of arbitrary "balance".208.120.242.212 (talk) 16:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Another problem with your original research with D3 etc. "The last complete census in Iraq conducted in 1997 indicated a total of 4,050,597 households." This is from http://www.opinion.co.uk/Documents/Revised%20Casulaty%20Data%20-%20Press%20release.doc, a different publication by the same source you cite saying ""At the 2005 census there were a total of 4,050,597 households.[13]" Obviously something is wrong here, unless we are to believe that the number of households remained exactly the same down to the single digit between 1997 and 2005. This clearly falls into the category of original research. Neither the nationwide household estimate nor the number of households that had some kind of "harm" come from D3.208.120.242.212 (talk) 16:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This is apparently the questionnaire for the 1997 Iraq census http://unstats.un.org/unsd/Demographic/sources/census/quest/IRQ1997en.pdf. At least two significant "additional assumptions beyond what is in the source", namely the D3 poll, are being applied by editor Timeshifter to produce his own estimate (original research). The first assumption is that the number of households in 1997 is the same as, or a reliable approximation of, the number of households in 2007. This assumption is clearly baseless given both the long time disparity and the refugee/displacement issues in between, but it is also clearly an assumption beyond what is in the D3 poll, making the estimate original research.


 * The second assumption is that "household" in the 1997 census is an equivalent unit to "household" in the D3 poll. This is also a baseless assumption and clearly beyond what is in the D3 poll. The 1997 census presumably used one uniform definition for household, following criteria monitored by the census takers to determine what did or did not constitute a household or household membership. By contrast, the D3 poll has 2,124 independent definitions of household, where the criteria for each definition is unknown to D3 or anyone else. Thus the original assumption for the Timeshifter "D3" estimate is that these 2,124 separate and unknown definitions of household match the one used in the 1997 census. The census questionnaire shows some places where this can go astray "11 no. of households in the residential unit". For the 1997 census a household and residential unit were separate things and there could be multiple households within each. Is this the case for the 2,124 independent definitions of household in the D3 poll? Maybe for some, all, none of the 2,124 definitions? Who knows? Question 34 in the census on "residential status" lists "1 resident present (permanently), 2 visitor present, 3 absent (inside the country), 4 absent (outside the country), 5 prisoner, 6 lost". How many of these (or other possibilities) are considered household members for the purposes of the 1997 census, as opposed to how many are considered household members in each of the 2,124 independent definitions in the D3 poll? Again, who knows?


 * Just because the ORB group chose to impose these baseless assumptions onto its poll data to make a number come out the other end does not mean applying them to other polls by other groups is not original research.208.120.242.212 (talk) 22:19, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) OK. I agree about the household total. We should just leave it at 17% of households. But both the AP and the D3 estimates should be in the top chart.

The AP estimate/count has many problems. It is good to balance counts, estimates, and surveys in the top chart. They all have faults. The problems have been reported over the years. About the morgues, hospitals, and government stats AP and others refer to, see the following info (references are in the casualties article):

On November 10, 2006 he Washington Post reported: "Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency."

About some of the AP sources a May 23, 2004 Associated Press article points out the lack of morgue data from many areas of Iraq. Also, it states: "The [Baghdad] figure does not include most people killed in big terrorist bombings, Hassan said. The cause of death in such cases is obvious so bodies are usually not taken to the morgue, but given directly to victims' families. Also, the bodies of killed fighters from groups like the al-Mahdi Army are rarely taken to morgues." - "5,500 Iraqis Killed, Morgue Records Show". May 23, 2004. By Daniel Cooney. Associated Press.

Juan Cole wrote in an October 11, 2006 article: "There is heavy fighting almost every day at Ramadi in al-Anbar province, among guerrillas, townspeople, tribes, Marines and Iraqi police and army. We almost never get a report of these skirmishes and we almost never are told about Iraqi casualties in Ramadi."

A July 28, 2004 article by The Independent reports that "some families bury their dead without notifying the authorities."

Stephen Soldz, who runs the website "Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report", wrote in a February 5, 2006 article: "Of course, in conditions of active rebellion, the safer areas accessible to Western reporters are likely to be those under US/Coalition control, where deaths are, in turn, likely to be due to insurgent attacks. Areas of insurgent control, which are likely to be subject to US and Iraqi government attack, for example most of Anbar province, are simply off-limits to these reporters. Thus, the realities of reporting imply that reporters will be witness to a larger fraction of deaths due to insurgents and a lesser proportion of deaths due to US and Iraqi government forces."

There are other similar quotes in news media reports. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:20, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm aware there are many different claims about many different tallies by Iraqi morgues, ministries or other official sources. There is no perfect information from any source, and a lot of different claims and opinions fly around about them. The table before did not reflect any of the official tallies and the AP one is the most up to date and as comprehensive as it gets. As such it should be there. It is notable, verifiable and important information covering the period listed for the table. It has every bit as much reason to be there as the ORB thing, for example, if not much more reason. I also can't see what you want to add from D3, or what exactly you think this would be "balancing", as you needed to invent your own estimate from it to make it produce a relevant figure for the table (which still wasn't a relevant figure anyway because it isn't even a deaths figure). I can see no reasonable basis for excluding AP. It is just POV-driven prejudice that wants it suppressed, no other reason.208.120.242.212 (talk) 19:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Dispute resolution
If there are issues that need settled, see WP:DR or WP:WQA.  hmwith  τ   13:38, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, this may need to go to dispute resolution (WP:DR) or WP:WQA. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Picture of soldier
It doesn't look very neutral to me to have a picture of a US soldier carrying a wounded child in the section "Iraqi civilian casualties". Hjalti (talk) 05:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add more images. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

How many US / coalition soldiers killed ? What about the Iraqi death toll, who are those people ?
Why doesn't the article provide information about the fallen soldiers ? Why aren't the numbers of the Iraqis more detailed ? Who are those people, by whome and in what circumstances have they been killed ?

This article needs some major work ... -- Alexey Topol (talk) 13:18, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit: Just saw that the article does address my questions, but only after scrolling down. It should say so in the first sentences, right in the introductory paragraph. -- Alexey Topol (talk) 13:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Shia/Sunni
Would it not be fair to the families of the victims, the Iraqi people and those who simply want to be informed to point out the sectarian affiliation of the victims, and show how many of those casualties were Shiite and how many were Sunni? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.108.170.40 (talk) 11:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no dispute over casualties
There is no real dispute over Iraqi casualties, actual counts show 100,000-150,000 deaths, while hacks claim 1 million deaths based on dubious extrapolations. The Lancet survey says 90% of the deaths have somehow gone totally unreported by the media, military, and government. Even car bomb deaths, 90% are supposedly missed. All this in an urban environment that has been under unusual media scrutiny. 10% of the adult male population of Iraq is supposedly dead and only 10% or so of the wounded have been treated at hospitals. What crap. And is it merely a coincidence that both Lancet surveys were released a month before the two U.S. elections that were dominated by the war? 71.65.71.145 (talk) 16:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and putting in Project Censorsed's comments about a "corporate media blackout" is just asinine considering that a) it is entirely based off the fraudulent ORB extrapolation b) it was reported in 2007-2008, thus not pertaining to 2009 anyway and c) the ridiculous Lancet estimate of 600,000 killed by June 2006 was widely trumpeted accross the media. 131.238.208.203 (talk) 16:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

No dispute?!? How can this article have any credibility? Look at the wide variation in numbers. A "NPOV" seems impossible. This is a prime example of the "lies, damn lies & statistics" mantra. The first casualty of war really is the truth. Every casualty should have a name. Don't they deserve that? Even as backward as Iraq was, they still issued birth certificates & death certificates, even if the bodies are unidentified. Obviously the terrorists who came to Iraq to wage jihad didn't register at the border, so they will invariably end up among the unidentified, unless ID from their home country is found on their bodies. A count without pinning each body to a name or other identification (and preferably a date and brief description of what happened) is as meaningless as counting pebbles in a bucket without removing them once counted. TodKarlson (talk) 08:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Attacks on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders
This section is almost wholly unsourced. If the editors who created this section cannot come up with citations corroborating the rather sweeping claims made therein, it needs to be deleted. --Nonstopdrivel (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. The only part that has any citation is the last sentence.  Are there any objections to removing this section until further citation is given? Inane Asylum (talk) 15:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have been bold and deleted it. It's been almost two months and the citation situation is no better than it was before, and even the lone citation of the last sentence is a dead link.--Nonstopdrivel (talk) 12:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding: "Overview. Death Estimates by Group"
I came to this article looking for a tally of the number of civilians killed by insurgent/terrorist attacks since the beginning of the war, i.e., the number of deaths caused by suicide bombings or other premeditated acts of violence directly targeting Iraqi civilians. When I saw the headline, "Overview. Death Estimates by Group," I thought, surely, here is where I will find the information I am seeking. But it wasn't there. Though Iraqi civilians killed by terrorists may be the largest single category of civilian deaths, that category is missing. I would respectfully suggest that this error be corrected.184.100.214.178 (talk) 07:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Everybody is killing everybody. People mostly count bodies, or do surveys. The only thing known in many cases is that the person is dead. Who killed them is oftentimes unknown. Whether they were a civilian or combatant is also oftentimes unknown. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If this is true, then why have this section at all? Inane Asylum (talk) 15:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Bosnian War civilian casualties comparison
The Bosnian War accounts give somewhere around 55,261 civilians and 47,360 soldiers according to the Hague tribunal, compared to widely cited reports exceeding 200,000. Are there solid civilian casualty figures from a similarly reputable source for the Iraq War at this point? Int21h (talk) 13:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It would take an in-depth census of in-country and exiled Iraqis to get a totally solid number. It probably won't be easy to get that to happen since the Sunnis and Shiites both do not want the other side to know the full scale of the slaughter that each inflicted on each other. And the Americans killed many more than they are admitting to, as verified by the limited surveying done in the Lancet surveys. All sides are still covering things up. It would also be dangerous to the large number of census and survey takers required to do it right.


 * There is also an ongoing casualty tragedy of verified high levels of birth defects in Fallujah for years. See Fallujah during the Iraq War. Even after years of mainstream media articles about the high levels of birth defects there is still a coverup caused by soil, air, water, and dust samples not being taken out of the area so that scientists worldwide can analyze the amounts of depleted uranium, and many other contaminants, that arrived when much of the city was bombed to rubble. See: Talk:Depleted uranium. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Iraq casualties - Obvious flaws in the NGO and medical organisations estimates.
Today We have sites that publish studies form the LAncet and many others that go FAR beyond the "official" US statistics on casualties. All well so far. Diversity, corrections and all. Except one "small" thing:

EXCEPT, that ALL these estimates are absolute TOTAL and UTTER bullshit US-UK _apologetics_. Which is proven "relatively" easily by ANYONE through common sense: 10 years of US-UK-EU pre war (second iraq war) sanctions led to what the UN and other NGO's / Medical journals and institutions confirmed had to be the uneccessary deaths of 500.000 _children_. Then how many _old_, youths and adults died in the same period as a cause of the 10 years sanctions??? - SO, are we to _believe_ that during the close to 10 years of war and post war situation, after the _complete_ destruction of ALL water, power, electricity for hospitals, exodus of ALL doctors, lack of ALL economy, infrastructure, cars, means of public transportation (money to run them), lack of gasoline, fear, people staying at home... are we to believe that DURING the war, the situation was BETTER than during the sanctions??? Are we to believe that the estimates of people dying as an indirect cause of the war ( lack of medicine, healthcare, hospitals, clean water, healthy and sufficient food, lack of doctors etc. ) people were BETTER off _during_ the WAR and in the years AFTER the war, things miraculously became _better_ than during the sanctions, and that it was at all LIKELY, that it even was _possible_ that the situation returned to being even on "a par" with the situation _during_ sanctions???? IF NOT, then FAR MORE than 500.000 children are likely to have died as an indirect cause of the war and all the deficiencies caused by the war. Even NOW almost 10 years after the war, _nothing_ is back to the standards during the sanctions. Money from the oil exports is NOT going to the population, health care, clean water etc. at the same levels as during the sanctions. Simply because NO ONE knows where the money is going! Almost a decade after the beginning of the war, reports have been clear: there is not even _metering_ of how much oil is leaving Iraq on a daily, weekly monthly or even year basis! Nothing! NO accurate estimates exist! Add to that the massive numbers of grotesquely deformed babies being born as a cause of the 400 TONS ++ of Depleted Uranium dropped over IRAQ, turning to micro fine particles blowing ALL over Iraq for close to a decade! Food imports were not even sufficient during sanctions when oil production was full, and ALL the income went to Iraq proper. Despite the oil embargo, Iraq was able to transport oil to Syria, Russia, China and North Korea and others. But that is not the main point, the point being that there is NO way of _telling_ how many have died! Simply because so wast amounts of people have fled (estimates), because of the way estimates are done, because of WHO are doing the estimates, and simply because of the lack of resources to even conduct any kind of serious estimates because of ALL of the above, AND more. And I must have forgotten to mention at least two dozen other factors and elements, but I hope this at least makes the picture a _little_ clearer. We cannot trust Amnesty International, ALL of the medical establishment have thoroughly discredited themselves a long time ago for anyone who have followed the industry with any depth of investigation the past 3 decades. Whistleblowers have been shunned and silenced by the Lancet too. As well as _all_ of them flying their true colors during the FAKE "swine flu" H1N1 scare of 2009...The one honest UN representative was gunned down and killed in IRAQ, and the entire government there consists of plain criminals and opportunists put in place by the US. Books can be and have been written on Iraq's problems. Trying to establish "conservative", "unnecessarily exaggerated" statistics is another pit fall, of those institutions trying to avoid criticism from the US establishment for being biased. The Lancet got scathing attacks for what little they _could_ document, and all other estimates were written off as spurious and biased "guesstimates". I think we can safely say that the "worst" and highest "guesstimates" ARE the _very_ much CORRECT and MOST ACCURATE ones at this stage. That is of course if we are at all bothered with truth, analysis, reason and rational thought... not very popular these days of course. Which is why it always comes under attack from those who claim to be the serious ones who "stick to" what they can "document"...

Nunamiut (talk) 23:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Please look up the meaning of tl;rd and read Chunk o' text defense
 * Secondly, an obvious oxymoron is "Obvious errors in official reports by reputable organizations". Also, take off that tinfoil hat, go to a library and use their online access to at least glimpse at a peer reviewed journal to see what all the craze is about.AerobicFox (talk) 04:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Deaths of who?
I came to this page trying to find total Iraqi deaths from both wars, and this page shows various death counts, but it doesn't say WHO died? Iraqis? Iraqis AND US military? Does it include Iraqi civilian deaths too? Does it include deaths from natural causes too (not from war)? Because with so many thousands of people, the natural mortality rate will seem like a significant number and if added to the stats, it would artificially inflate the numbers. It would be very nice to clarify this simple, but big oversight as to WHO has died? --Cheap-stock-photos (talk) 07:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Australia did NOT suffer 21 military deaths in Iraq
I changed the number of Australian military deaths from 21 to 2. There were no sources indicating 21 Australian Military deaths, only 2.

see http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

165.65.136.76 (talk) 14:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)