We don't do body counts?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The San Francisco Chronicle, MAY 3, 2003, SATURDAY, FINAL EDITION

How many Iraqis died? We may never know;

Some observers are pressuring Pentagon to put forth an informed estimate

by Edward Epstein

The world will never know how many Iraqis died in the war to oust Saddam 
Hussein, in part because the United States adamantly refuses to estimate 
the number of people it kills in combat and because gathering accurate 
numbers is all but impossible after the Iraqi government's chaotic collapse.

What Bush administration officials do say is that the U.S. operation in 
Iraq included unprecedented efforts to minimize civilian casualties. 
That humanitarian stance has increased pressure on the Pentagon to 
abandon its long-held refusal to publicly offer numbers of civilians or 
enemy military personnel killed, as a way of showing if the use of 
precision-guided bombs and missiles and rules designed to avoid civilian 
targets have reduced so-called collateral damage.

"We don't do body counts," Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the Iraq 
invasion, has said.

===

USA TODAY, February 1, 1991, Friday, FINAL EDITION

Military to avoid Vietnam-style 'body-counts'

by Tony Mauro

The U.S. military command voiced fresh determination Thursday to avoid 
one of the mistakes of the Vietnam War: enemy ''body counts.''

''We don't find it healthy to do that,'' said Brig. Gen. Pat Stevens 
during a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia briefing Thursday. ''We had instances, 
unfortunately, in Vietnam where there were incorrect numbers being 
furnished.''

(snip)

Inflated body counts damaged U.S. credibility and fueled a feud between 
the military and the media that continued into the 1980s. After a 1982 
CBS documentary on allegations of military misreporting during Vietnam, 
Gen. William Westmoreland sued for libel. The case was settled out of 
court after the start of a highly publicized trial.

===

7 Iraqis Killed After Ambushing U.S. Army Tank Patrol

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

BALAD, Iraq, June 13 — American forces killed seven Iraqis in a ground 
and air operation here today after a United States tank patrol was 
attacked north of Baghdad.

An "organized group" ambushed the tanks with rocket-propelled grenades 
in Balad, about 35 miles north of the capital, the United States Central 
Command said in a statement.

That statement said 27 Iraqi fighters had been killed. Later today, a 
spokesman for Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida said 
he had no precise information on the death toll.

No mention was made of American casualties.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/international/worldspecial/13CND-ATTA.html


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