85,000 Iraqis Killed From 2004-2008

AP:

BAGHDAD -- At least 85,000 people lost their lives from 2004 to 2008 in Iraq's violence, according to the first official report by the Iraqi government on the death toll since the war begun.

The report, released by the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry late Tuesday as part of a larger study on the country's human rights situation, said 85,694 people were killed from 2004-08, and 147,195 were wounded during the same period.

The Associated Press reported in April that just over 87,000 people died between 2005 and early 2009, according to government statistics it obtained.

The Iraqi death toll has been a hotly disputed subject and critics on both sides of the political spectrum have accused the other side of manipulating the death numbers to sway public opinion.

As Iraq became increasingly violent following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, it also became increasingly difficult to independently track such figures on a wide scale.

The report was based on death certificates issued by the health ministry and constitutes the first official finding by a government ministry on the death toll since the war begun in 2003.

Statistics for 2003 have been extremely difficult to obtain as there was no functioning Iraqi government during that time and the interim Iraqi government was not seated until mid-2004.

The report described the years that followed the U.S.-led invasion, which toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, as extremely violent years.

"Through the terrorist attacks like explosions, assassinations, kidnappings and forced displacements, the outlawed groups have created these terrible figures which represent a big challenge for the rule of law and for the Iraqi people," it said.

The report also breaks down some specific numbers, saying 1,279 children and 2,334 women were killed. It also puts the death toll of the university professors at 263, judges at 21, lawyers 95 and journalists at 269 -- some of the professions which were specifically targeted as the country descended into chaos.

The toll also included 15,000 unidentified bodies who were not claimed by their families and are buried in special cemeteries.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[KIVPossum]

02:16 AM on 10/15/2009

>>>according to the first official report by the Iraqi government


My wife says she only had two lovers before she met me. That's her official report.

[eahce]

02:51 PM on 10/14/2009

How many more since Obama took over the reigns and continues this war of lies?

[edwoodjr]

02:46 PM on 10/14/2009

Not sure what to make of this number. I see the "subcategories" (professors, judges, etc.) but that seems to indicate more "political violence" than anything else if judges and professors are targeted. What context are we to take these numbers in? Civilians dying due to the US campaign (i.e. bombing), insurgents killled or just a total count for the country over that period? Kind of "gross" to reduce it to a simpilstic number but not sure what it means.

Regardless, it's way too many lives.

[hulagirrrl]

03:27 PM on 10/14/2009

Yes way too many. This will haunt us for a long time to come, can you imagine the hate these numbers breed?

[dotmafia]

02:45 PM on 10/14/2009

Aggression, in the wording of the Nuremburg Tribunal, is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" -- all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US and UK invasion, for example.

Prosecute

Indict

Convict

Punish

Bush. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice.

[monicaangela]

02:30 PM on 10/14/2009

It must be terrible to lose your life and not be counted as one who lost his or her life....We won't get the real number until democracy truly comes to that nation, maybe after the Americans leave.

[eweqo]

02:29 PM on 10/14/2009

I guess, once again, liberals have to face the facts. their 600,00 number was totally fabricated to undermine President Bush. Now that obama is in charge, the statisticians feel obliged to print the truth.

[electricladyland]

03:24 PM on 10/14/2009

Yes, Bush can sleep well at night knowing he only caused 85,000 deaths by attacking Iraq after 9/11.

[MajorKong]

09:02 PM on 10/14/2009

Let's suppose we were way off and it was "only" 58,159

We have a wall in Washington DC with that many names on it and we consider it to be a very big deal.

[DismayedRepub]

11:30 PM on 10/15/2009

Damn straight it’s a big deal. How many names will there be on the next wall?

[alysheba 3]

12:53 PM on 10/14/2009

I think the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry needs to learn to count better.