Another Body Count

Here's a new body count by anti-war groups. You can probably add the editorial comment on the validity of the statistics considering that the groups have an obvious objective. Failing to be objective in this case also shows in the articles. (shocking)

Key findings in the report include:

• Women and children accounted for 18% of the civilians killed.
• Nearly half the deaths occurred in Baghdad.
• 30% of the deaths occurred during the invasion phase.

The study's authors used the term "unknown agents" for killers whose identity could not be determined from news reports. For instance, when three people are fatally shot outside a mosque, it is difficult to say whether it represents the act of an insurgent, a common crime or sectarian violence.

Of those killed by insurgents, criminals or unknown agents, 9.5% were clearly slain by insurgents and 36% by criminals and unknown agents, according to the report.

I had to edit the quote a little for formt since the cut/paste from the article failed to move the formating correctly.

Aren't you fascinated that the LATimes fails to actually innumerate those directly attributed to the US war effort? Yes they point out those during the invasion, but not the total. The Boston Globe gives you that statistic, but none of the others.

Of the total, nearly 37 percent were killed by US-led forces, the group said.

I'd almost suspect that the LATimes and Boston Globe were trying subtle propagandizing of these statistics, but that would sound paranoid. They really only want to give us the right information to make decisions on our own. (yeah, right.)

It's also funny that the MSM don't say that the report has a minimum side. They only report the maximum number possible. I noted that the differences between the max and min are several thousand casualties. At least the authors of the report are trying to be honest about the accuracy.

We acknowledge that many parties to this conflict will have an interest in manipulating casualty figures for political ends. There is no such thing (and will probably never be such a thing) as an "wholly accurate" figure, which could accepted as historical truth by all parties. This is why we will always publish a minimum and a maximum for each reported incident. Some sources may wish to over-report casualties. Others may wish to under-report them. Our methodology is not biased towards "propaganda" from any particular protagonist in the conflict. We will faithfully reflect the full range of reported deaths in our sources. These sources, which are predominantly Western (including long established press agencies such as Reuters and Associated Press) are unlikely to suppress conservative estimates which can act as a corrective to inflated claims. We rely on the combined, and self-correcting, professionalism of the world's press to deliver meaningful maxima and minima for our count.

I believe this is the actual report. The link is to the background/methodology page that links to the data. The methods I would say are interesting, though it is a third party sourced report. They get their information from the MSM. You can read the section on methodology.

The report overall probably isn't too bad as long as you understand the methodology and the failings of such reports.