Iraq American Death Count: Public Largely Unaware

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds a staggering drop in the public awareness about fatalities in Iraq:

Public awareness of the number of American military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August. Today, just 28% of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. As of March 10, the Department of Defense had confirmed the deaths of 3,974 U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

In August 2007, 54% correctly identified the fatality level at that time (about 3,500 deaths). In previous polls going back to the spring of 2004, about half of respondents could correctly estimate the number of U.S. fatalities around the time of the survey.

(Note: the number of U.S. deaths confirmed by the Department of Defense is 3,974. Thirteen U.S. deaths are pending confirmation, for a total of 3,987).

By contrast, 84% of Americans knew that Oprah Winfrey was supporting Sen. Barack Obama for President.

The study also finds that over the same period of time, the media coverage dropped to only 3% of news:

The drop in awareness comes as press attention to the war has waned. According to the News Content Index conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the percentage of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined since last year, dropping from an average of 15% of the newshole in July to just 3% in February.

Click here to read the entire poll.

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda)

"Propaganda" is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. The most effective propaganda is often completely truthful, but some propaganda presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the subject in the target audience.

[kidgonebad]

PBS The News Hour does a silent roll call, showing photos, ages and hometowns, each night. Americans, for that reason alone, should watch it. Many of us should be ashamed at our lack of focus on this 'war'.

[chickeyd]

I find it ironic that a big news story today is that the news isn't covering the "war" as much as it used to. Now the news not reporting the news is news. Fabulous. I see three of the four horsemen now...

[athy]

Here is another number that most Americans don't know-major reason-US media blackout

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html

As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes"violent and non-violent"are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion.

Misc:
How much we know is heavily influenced by what information our media makes available to us-and that in turn, is influenced by the Advertsers-what type of customers is the media outlet/publication trying to attract so as to keep & grow advertising base. Circulation is not where they make their $ from-its from advertsing dollars based upon customer demographics.

Take a look at the corporate media fiasco during the debates this year. How much information did the public receive from the consolidated corporate mainstream media on the issues that are important that citizens need to know about to be self-governing??? Did anyone question why certain viable candidates were being ignored by the mainstream media in hopes that they would just shut up & drop out- Kucinich? Edwards? Paul, and many others.
Here is the sad part- for some reason, many of us have very short term memories...and you know the old saying-history doesnt repeat itself-WE repeat history.

Perhaps this explains some of the statistics in this article...

Honestly, I was not surprised by the shocking numbers as presented here..
.

[timothe]

iraqbodycount.org has debunked the John Hopkins count and the Lancet study. They keep a running count of Iraqi casualties, which is currently 81,000 to 89,000. It's a conservative number, I agree, but their methodology pretty much proves that the 600,000 and the 1 million number are gross exaggerations.

[athy]

According to Media Lens- (www.Media Lens.org) an independent journalists website
That is not correct. The Lancelot study has not been debunked. Its figure (650,000 civilian Iraqi deaths) is quoted along side the other three Iraqi civilian death figures.

The four sets of Iraqi civilian death numbers that are being reported are as follows:

1.2 million “Opinion Research Business (ORB), is a UK-based polling agency. It extrapolated the figure since the 2003 invasion by asking a random sample of 1,461 Iraqi adults how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes. (This figure is used by BBC in its news reports.).
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/071003_iraq_body_count.php

650,000 The Lancet surveys of casualties of the Iraq War, - conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, does not differentiate between the invasion phase (March-May 2003) and the occupation phase (post May 2003).
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html


130,000 according to Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari .Based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals – such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

71,00 to 78,000 - Iraq Body Count a group that relies on Western press reports to measure civilian casualties http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
*According to Media Lens, “the mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps 5-10% of the true death toll.”

[mesuki]

As my husband always says, if the ones so eager to start the wars were the ones actually fighting the wars there would be less wars. Instead its our young men that are doing the fighting for all those greedy, power hungry war mongers in Washington D.C. While Bush , Cheney and their partners in crime are attending black tie functions and having a good time. Our soldiers are in Iraq fighting a senseless war, and families are being destroyed by the loss of some these men and women.Shame on you president Bush and vice president Cheney!

[Honza]

Remember they used to say they don't keep track of the of the Iraqi body counts. When our throops were wounded and they returned home mangled and later died in some hospital or at home , they were and still are combat soldiers that died for this dumb war, and should be counted. What no records? They the war mongers want to keep a low count, hardly mentioning the other countries that have surpassed even our 4000.

[Ramirez]

Your statements are untrue.

For a full list of coalition casualites you can click here:
http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx

[FatherOfAllLife]

Use of Depleted Uranium ALONE in the THREE ILLEGAL WAR$ of AGGRE$$ION (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq) has CAUSED THE DEATHS OF OVER 11,000 (OLD NUMBERS, THE CURRENT NUMBER IS WAY HIGHER) OF OUR TROOPS WITH OVER HALF A MILLION ON PERMANENT DISABILITY.
DU Death Toll Tops 11,000
29.10.06. James Tucker, American Free Press. "Nationwide Media Blackout Keeps U.S. Public Ignorant About This Important Story. The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as depleted uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers." There is further information on Depleted Uranium at Index Research. google "DU" at site. section 11 Future deaths: Radiation & DU in Index on US Troops (very good site) http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html & http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html

[DietrichMoody]

AND 60,000 WOUNDED

[PDXTransplant]

Does the 3,974 even include the troops that die after they leave Iraq?

[CHARLESTHETENTH]

Like I said...the News media has more influence in shaping our lives and thoughts than most of us realize. Our news media spends more time devoted to reality type news or this election process that it is simply mind-boggling. The news media has a responsibility to the American people to be more truthful and thorough in reporting World news especially where our soldiers are dying and being wounded. It is not that the American people have lost a taste for this War but that most of it goes unreported. The American people should not depend so much on our "home grown" news but should reach out to the many other avenues from around the World in getting more factual and real time news be it Iraq, Afghanistan, the plight in Gaza etc...The Internet provides an abundance of news sources where you can get much better factual reporting than what we provide. Many of our TV celebrity news anchors or so called "journalists" provide nothing more than prepared scripted (read the teleprompter) type news that is very heavily biased. They get paid big bucks for what they spew every night and sadly most American people get their news this way. Corporate America probably owns most media stations so you can understand their lack of objectivity. What should have been a continuous exposure, and never letting up on all the untruths from this administration from the start.....instead has all so conveniently faded away.

[julianne]

If you believe the Pentagon's figures on dead and wounded then you are a white person living in the United States. The major disparity between the actual dead and wounded and what the Pentagon statistics reports clarifies once and for all that our major media is a veritable enemy of the American people. We all know that if you're wounded and sent out of country to die you are not counted. Nor are the suicides or the thousands of other deaths by wounds that will certainly transpire over the years or in the immediate future. You can double and triple any number the lying, white trash, theocratic scum in the Pentagon provides you. You know, our fellow citizens that went to West Point and Annapolis where, apparently, they teach you that lying to the American people and undermining the Constitution and Bill of Rights is kosher as long as there are monarchists and fascists running the country that are working assiduously to destroy the people's military security and murder our children for a handful of pathologically families that live like Pharoahs.

[Brgotn]

You should seek perfessional help. It can't be helpful living with all of that pent up hate and racisim inside you.

[ChristianEcon.com]

On the other hand, there were some very good points about how the "official" numbers are deliberately misleading.

[PinkoAttic]

If I were a black person in America, which I am not, I don't think it would be racist to revile against a military occupation facilitated by an army made up disproportionately of poor black folks....or are they supposed to die because that's their lot in life ?

[PinkoAttic]

...make that "julianne"" not Marianne, with my apologies to her. Patriotism is more than rallying behind a flag of which many have forgotten the significance.

[timothe]

iraqcasualties.org is a non-profit website which tracks casualties. Believe me, if there were a large number of non reported casualties, then the parents of those dead soldiers would be marching. The MIA count in Iraq is miniscule meaning that the reports must be accurate.

It seems like you are able to use big words to express your hate, but you are not able to think through the holes in your conspiracy. Perhaps the use of your brain is misguided.

[momofsonofwar]

I check this site 4 to 5 times a day and then pray no one comes knocking at my door.

[evilzed]

You obviously did not see the DOD casualthy websites figures before Dumbass reclassified how deaths were to be recorded, Then all deaths by troops and coilition were recorded and showed on the DOD casualty page, over 10,000 dead (that was years ago.
To an average joe, a death in a foreign country during war is a casualty, but in the propaganda war stage, most deaths will not be counted because they happened on the way to hospital, or on a helicopter or suicide or rage.
The first casualty of war is the truth.

[PinkoAttic]

Sadly, it appears Marianne may be correct. Soldiers who are wounded but subsequently flown to the military hospital in Germany are NOT counted in the mortality numbers. You can trash what she has to say, but it is the truth. When you really think about it, honestly, 4000 troops over 5 years of bloody insurrection in a country where Americans despised is not a believable number. Many things can be officially said to the parents of dead soldiers to pacify their grief and understandable curiousity. It is gullible to suggest that a government clever enough to put an almost total independent news blackout on the war is not equally efficient in concealing ugly statistics.

You seem like an intelligent person. Try to read more foreign media sources. They don't owe the U.S. government any favors and tend to frown on the Orwellian nightmare that is being visited upon the good people of the United States.

[FatherOfAllLife]

WHY should anyone believe you? OR the pentagon?
ESPECIALLY after we've read the reports about how they hide the ACTUAL numbers.

[ScandalousCandice]

I am aware of the death toll. My friend from school, Scott Kirkpatrick was killed in Iraq.

http://www.edkirkpatrick.com/scott/

Even Details Magazine did a piece on Scott's death.

http://men.style.com/details/features/landing?id=content_6260

[bar1ed]

the picture freaks me out ----- while waiting for my orders for Vietnam at fort Jackson s.c., i was put into what the army calls a " holding company ". in that 3 1/2 week time period i had to do 7 funeral details. its something i will never forget. its hard to bury a brother.

[hoodrat]

Yes the atrocities in Irag, that started from daddy Bush and continued through the next two admin's. Yeah, I said it! While Ruwanda, and Bosnia were running red, that color fluid couldn't run our country - the black did. Iran goes back to Reagan, Carter - Iran And Lebanon. Change the mindset. What will be remembered of Pres. Cheney, and the hand puppet Dubya, is how they bankrupted the country in a two-front war, that had verylittle to do with bin-Laden, or 9/11, put substance to a shadow government - complete with mercenary forces that outnumber American Military forces currently committed to the Middle East The piece-by-piece dismantlement of our Constitution for Politcal and Personal gain, the resultant vacuum of Corporations, jobs - leaving citizenry to "eat cake". And if that weren't epic enough, they still want to confront Iran........Yep - quite a legacy.

[Lazslo]

More evidence that Americans like this war. The building is on fire, but Americans do not want to call the fire department. Even those who allegedly oppose the war do nothing to stop it. Time to face facts, Americans love war and killing, they just don't like to see it happening - which is good because the media doesn't show anything. A match made in heaven. Happy shopping everyone!

[DietrichMoody]

AND 60,000 WOUNDED

Why do the working class continue to vote against their economic and social interests?
Read "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America", by Thomas Frank . It addresses this phenomena. But there voting this Primary season is telling, at least Kansas is waking up.

Working class boys from communities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and California WILL end up on the front lines. 4,000 can jump to 18,000 in two years.McCain says 100 years of war and Hillary does not know what to do. Pathetic.

[The 13 Colonies]

What is wrong with Americans?This country is so dumbed down, nobodynotices that the middle class is all but totally distroyed.Don't vote for anyone who will send any more of our sons and daughters to DIE in a war that is only making the rich get richer and the poor poorer...................

[Rosanneofpgh]

Its a complete mystery to me why the middle class and the poor continue to vote for people who keep slapping them down. There are more of us than there are of them. You would think that we were smart enough to know that there is power in sheel numbers and that we would be smart enough or have enough sense of survival to look out for ourselves.

But nooooo, the morons in florida and ohio continue to cut us down every chance they get. What those assholes dont understand is that they pay as much for gas as the rest of us. That THEIR children will be fodder for the illegal OIL war that we are mired in; not the children of wealth.

Stupidity, thy name is average american citizen.

[rmreddicks]

television news. it really works.