World

Buried in the Chaos of War: Over 110,000 Iraqis Killed Since 2003

by Jarrett Martineau | April 23, 2009 at 01:25 pm

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A recently leaked "secret report" from Iraq's government indicates that 87,125 of Iraqi citizens have been killed since 2005.

When combined with other tallies and media reports, this brings the total death toll of Iraqi citizens to over 110,600 Iraqis since the beginning of the U.S.-led war in 2003.

As of this writing, the total cost of the war in Iraq is $662.7 billion and climbing.

Iraq's government has recorded 87,215 of its citizens killed since 2005 in violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings, according to government statistics obtained by The Associated Press that break open one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.

Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

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Roy C

at 17:48 on April 23rd, 2009

The money is still less than the Bush-Obama TARP program. Amazing.

How many of those Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis (Sunni vs Shiite) in the post-invasion civil war?

Roy C

at 20:47 on April 23rd, 2009

As a matter of fact, the Sunni-Shiite conflict is a thousand years old. Iraq is not a country that should have ever existed, but was purely the result of Britain wanting to administer the area as one colony.

So, there is nothing natural about the Sunni-Shiite cohabitation of the same country. Iraq is a Middle-Eastern Yugoslavia, held together by just a few agreements and it could all blow sky-high easily.

Beside the Sunni-Shiite confilict there is the problem of the Kurds who wish to be both independent of Iraq and Turkey, another potential war and another place where hundreds of thousand have been killed.

hussain

at 21:36 on April 23rd, 2009

The American war mongers may give millions of justifications for killing innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere ignoring the fact that as a repurcussion of what the US has done in Afghanistan, Iraq and now doing in Pakistan may lead to similar massacres in the US. But God knows why the US policymakers are ignoring this fact.