One Utah

Some Washington politicians and media types are going around repeating the Bush administration’s contention that the deployment of more American combat brigades has brought more security to Iraq. The US military command claims, without citing any evidence, that civilian casualties are down.

First McClatchy Newspapers and now the Associated Press decided to fact-check the Pentagon spin. They both concluded that the escalation has expanded and intensified an already high level of violence, resulting in a dramatic jump in casualty numbers and people forcibly driven from their homes.

—Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year — an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.

—Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.

—Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.

—According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year, from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.

AP cautions that their figures are based on only their own reporting and should be considered a minimum. The actual numbers are likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted. AP did not count insurgent deaths.

This entry was posted Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Disaster, Iraq, National Politics, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.