from the ACLU

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Government Files on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq Released

The ACLU filed a request on Oct. 7, 2003, under the Freedom of
Information Act demanding the release of information about detainees
held overseas by the United States.

Go to www.aclu.org/civiliancasualties to learn more and search the
documents released by the government.

Since U.S. troops first set foot in Afghanistan in 2001, the Defense
Department has gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress
information about the human costs of war. But documents made public by
the ACLU this week provide a vivid window into the lives of innocent
Afghans and Iraqis caught in conflict zones.

Hundreds of claims for damages by family members of civilians killed
by Coalition Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were recovered through a
Freedom of Information Act request filed in June 2006. The claims and
related materials highlight the cost of government efforts to suppress
information, through policies including:

* Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the
arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed
overseas;

* Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;

* Inviting U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but
requiring them to submit their stories to the military for
pre-publication review;

* Erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, and

* Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.

In Afghanistan in March 2002, then-head of U.S. Central Command
General Tommy Franks said "You know we don't do body counts."
Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in November 2003, "We
don't do body counts on other people."

The ACLU released a total of 496 files: 479 from Iraq and 17 from
Afghanistan. Of those claims, 198 were denied based on an exemption
for combat situations. The documents released by the ACLU are
available online in a searchable database at:
www.aclu.org/civiliancasualties.

In one file, a civilian from the Salad Ad Din province in eastern Iraq
states that U.S. forces opened fire with over one hundred rounds on
his sleeping family, killing his mother, father and brother.

"Although these files are deeply disturbing to read, they allow us to
understand the human cost of war in a way that the usual statistics
and platitudes do not" said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Director of the
ACLU's National Security Program.

In a separate effort, the ACLU filed a FOIA request in October 2003
for records concerning the abuse of prisoners held by U.S. forces in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. That request has resulted in the
release of more than 100,000 pages, all of which are available online
at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia. Litigation regarding that request is
ongoing.

--
Jim Devine /  "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.