George Bush responds to the news that the death-toll of his little adventure in Iraq has hit 655,000:
"I stand by the figure that a lot of innocent people have lost their life. Six-hundred thousand or whatever they guess at is just not credible"
Because clearly, some number the President pulled out of his arse is far more "credible" than one calculated by people who actually went there and looked.
Actually I/S, Bush may have pulled his figures off your website...you don't (yet) seem to endorse the 650k figure either.
ReplyDeleteM'lud
Anon, Iraq Body Count doesn't presume to calculate the full number of deaths in Iraq due to U.S. invasion. It only tallies civilian deaths reported by recognised sources, which can only be a sample of true deaths.
ReplyDeleteAs they say on their website: "It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war."
Anon does have a point though - IBC only record casualties from media outlets that publish on the internet in english - so do they deserve continued attention? No doubt you've thought about this I/S...
ReplyDeleteGeorge: they are however the best source for the ongoing toll of the war - mainly because nobody else seems to be looking. They underestimate horribly, but at least you can point to them and say that they are rock solid numbers, and a floor rather than a ceiling. And even their massive underestimate is more than bad enough to condemn George Bush and his cronies to your prefered unfavourable afterlife (which from my POV, means being remembered not as a "defender of freedom" or a "war President" akin to Roosevelt, but as a man who was not big enough for the times, a miserable failure, and a mass-murdering war criminal who deserved impeachment and trial before the ICC)
ReplyDelete