Every single civilian death is by definition a tragedy. However, I find it amazing that according to your website, after 4 days of heavy bombing that the figure is as low as 205 killed. Surely the civilian casualty figure should be in the thousands by now, particularly as you highlight the effect that some of the weapons have?
I also think that the Iraqi government wants to underreport civilian deaths so as not to panic it's own population. They did the same thing in Gulf War #1.
iraqbodycount only cares about civilians KILLED DIRECTLY by Coalition attacks (and maybe figures in some that died in hospital).
E.g., the Afghanistan death toll calculated by this method was some 4-5000.
Most civilian victims that died/will die because of Coaltion military action are 'scondary' casualties (e.g. succumbing to unsanitary conditions, polluted water supplies etc); for these, the Web site does not give figures (impossible to count, since they are not reported anywhere).
Bear in mind that the counter ist 12-48 hours behind the actual casualty figures as they need to check on their reports before publishing. Bear in mind, too, that the days of carpet-bombing are yet to come. Up to now, most of the weapons used are precision-guided ordnance, which hits its targets (using GPS guidance) in 80-90% of the cases (current real-life figures) and that most of the targets were large and/or in areas sparsely inhabited by civilians.
That is to say, sure the figure seems low, but civilians are not yet in the crosshairs, really. This is to come if the Iraqi resistance continues (as it seems it will) and the US/UK roll out the indiscriminate killing machines - cluster bombs, carpet bombing, MOABs/Daisy Cutters and (as threatened by Rummy) 'nontoxic' (as in the 'Nord-Ost' theatre incident) gas and subtactical nukes.
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
Amazed!
24.03.2003 17:40
Paul Edwards
I agree with amazed
24.03.2003 18:27
E. Miesner
no,
24.03.2003 19:33
E.g., the Afghanistan death toll calculated by this method was some 4-5000.
Most civilian victims that died/will die because of Coaltion military action are 'scondary' casualties (e.g. succumbing to unsanitary conditions, polluted water supplies etc); for these, the Web site does not give figures (impossible to count, since they are not reported anywhere).
Bear in mind that the counter ist 12-48 hours behind the actual casualty figures as they need to check on their reports before publishing.
Bear in mind, too, that the days of carpet-bombing are yet to come. Up to now, most of the weapons used are precision-guided ordnance, which hits its targets (using GPS guidance) in 80-90% of the cases (current real-life figures) and that most of the targets were large and/or in areas sparsely inhabited by civilians.
That is to say, sure the figure seems low, but civilians are not yet in the crosshairs, really. This is to come if the Iraqi resistance continues (as it seems it will) and the US/UK roll out the indiscriminate killing machines - cluster bombs, carpet bombing, MOABs/Daisy Cutters and (as threatened by Rummy) 'nontoxic' (as in the 'Nord-Ost' theatre incident) gas and subtactical nukes.
encarta