Iraq: "We Don't do Body Counts"

Lieutenant General Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan during his time as head of US Central Command, once announced, "We don't do body counts." This blunt response to a question about civilian casualties was an attempt to distance George Bush's wars from the disaster of Vietnam. One of the rituals of that earlier conflict was the daily announcement of how many Vietnamese fighters US forces had killed. It was supposed to convince a sceptical American public that victory was coming. But the "body count" concept sounded callous - and never more so than when it emerged that many of the alleged guerrilla dead were in fact women, children and other unarmed civilians.

Read the rest of What is the real death toll in Iraq? here

Links to death toll reports:

The Lancet reports are here: 2004
and the 2006 follow up report

Les Roberts:
Iraq's death toll is far worse than our leaders admit

Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option

Blairwatch: Blair And Bush Hit By Friendly Fire

The ORB report: More than one million Iraqis murdered

Iraq: Mission Accomplished?