Counting The Iraqi Dead By Eugene Robinson

[T]he exact number [of Iraqi civilians killed] is not the point. Rather, it’s the scope and scale of the carnage.

Late last year President Bush gave an off-the-cuff estimate of 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths — this after the administration had steadfastly refused to acknowledge even trying to count the Iraqi dead. Now the administration is willing to allow that perhaps 50,000 civilians have died. It is unclear whether any science at all has gone into these estimates or whether they were essentially pulled out of a hat.

600,000 Iraqis Killed By War, Credible? – Early Warning by William M. Arkin

In an editorial yesterday, [the Washington Times] commented on the Hopkins numbers, opining that probably over 100,000 Iraqis have died: “The independent British organization Iraq Body Count reports 44,000-49,000 deaths, which is probably too low. President Bush’s “about 30,000” in December was obviously too low. The Iraqi group Iraqiyun reported 128,000 between the invasion and July 2005, which is probably closer to the mark. Extrapolated to the present, the figure would be in the high 100,000s or low 200,000s. But nearly 400,000 couldn’t possibly be the answer.”

Who would have thought it, that the anti-war Iraq Body Count would now be hailed as “too low” in its accounting? Who would have thought that the right wing newspaper would be urging acceptance of a number four times larger than the anti-war group for assuming Iraqi civilian casualties?