I can't believe I saw
this at the bottom of Google News, in a corner, wanting to be swept away on a Sunday evening:
(CNN) -- A recent U.S. military report estimates that nearly 26,000 Iraqis were killed or wounded by insurgent attacks from January 1, 2004, through September 16, 2005.
Numbers on the flip.
"Approximately 80 percent of all attacks are directed against coalition forces, but 80 percent of all casualties are suffered by Iraqis," the Pentagon report said.
The figure was extrapolated from a bar graph on page 23 of the report, which shows average daily casualties since January 2004. The chart is not exact, but the figure can be considered a rough estimate.
The number did not include civilians who may have been killed or wounded in coalition attacks, nor did it include insurgents.
January 1, 2004 through September 16th, 2005 is 625 days, and 20.5 months. Therefore there have been 1268.29 deaths per month or 41.6 deaths per day by my calculations, all numbers approximate as worded by the report.
In addition, according to the Iraq Casualty Count website 3492 Iraqi military or police have died to date. And again, it did not include 'insurgent' deaths, which occupation forces have been killing ever since the mission was accomplished.
However, these numbers are more of a ballpark figure. From Reuters:
He said the count did not provide separate figures for the number of killed or wounded and how many of those were civilians, police officers or soldiers.
The counts were based on casualty reports filed by U.S. and allied forces who responded to attacks, but Venable noted that foreign troops did not respond to all attacks.
Another reminder of the amount of suffering and death this war and occupation has brought upon people. The CNN article closes with the following:
Several more deaths over the weekend brought to 2,015 the number of U.S. troops who have died in the Iraq war, including 82 this month.
Making American casualties swell to over 17,000 killed or wounded.