The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, more than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.

"The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces)," WikiLeaks said in a statement regarding the documents' release. "The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 percent) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period."

The new documents covered 2004 through 2009, WikiLeaks said, with the exception of May 2004 and March 2009.

A review of the documents by Iraq Body Count, an advocacy group that long has monitored civilian casualties in the war, found 15,000 previously unknown civilian deaths, according to WikiLeaks -- a detail first reported in The Guardian newspaper, one of a handful of international news organizations that got an advance look at the documents.


ABCNEWS.com

The U.S. military long has maintained that it does not keep an official death tally, but earlier this month following a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon said some 77,000 Iraqis had been killed from 2004 to mid-2008 -- a shorter period than that covered by WikiLeaks.

Besides the different time periods, the New York Times, which also saw the WikiLeaks documents early, noted that "some deaths are reported more than once, and some reports have inconsistent casualty figures."

Al Jazeera, which also got an advance look at the documents, reported a total of 285,000 war casualties on its Arabic-language website, a number that included both dead and wounded. It also reported that the documents said 681 Iraqi civilians were killed at U.S. checkpoints, 180,000 Iraqis were arrested during the war and 15,000 Iraqis were buried without being identified.

The massive leak of 391,832 documents at 5 p.m. ET today, which WikiLeaks billed as "the largest classified military leak in history," followed WikiLeaks' similar but smaller release on the war in Afghanistan.

Jihadin wrote:

When is a bad guy in Iraq, not a bad guy

When he's not shooting/IED/mortar/rocketing us.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:@cptjake. No way am I suggesting that your in favour of seeing thousands of civilians die. My apologies for any misunderstanding.

I'm not anti-american. There is a difference between criticising a government( which I don't like) and the individuals, which I do like. Why else would I go on holiday there? Now, logically, you could say the government is an extension of the people's will, so by criticising the government you are attacking the people! But's let's not go there

The reason I mentioned the chinese is that there is double standards at play with the west's foreign policy.

Finally, here is some evidence to back up what I was saying earlier. from abc news

The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, more than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.

"The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces)," WikiLeaks said in a statement regarding the documents' release. "The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 percent) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period."

The new documents covered 2004 through 2009, WikiLeaks said, with the exception of May 2004 and March 2009.

A review of the documents by Iraq Body Count, an advocacy group that long has monitored civilian casualties in the war, found 15,000 previously unknown civilian deaths, according to WikiLeaks -- a detail first reported in The Guardian newspaper, one of a handful of international news organizations that got an advance look at the documents.


ABCNEWS.com

The U.S. military long has maintained that it does not keep an official death tally, but earlier this month following a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon said some 77,000 Iraqis had been killed from 2004 to mid-2008 -- a shorter period than that covered by WikiLeaks.

Besides the different time periods, the New York Times, which also saw the WikiLeaks documents early, noted that "some deaths are reported more than once, and some reports have inconsistent casualty figures."

Al Jazeera, which also got an advance look at the documents, reported a total of 285,000 war casualties on its Arabic-language website, a number that included both dead and wounded. It also reported that the documents said 681 Iraqi civilians were killed at U.S. checkpoints, 180,000 Iraqis were arrested during the war and 15,000 Iraqis were buried without being identified.

The massive leak of 391,832 documents at 5 p.m. ET today, which WikiLeaks billed as "the largest classified military leak in history," followed WikiLeaks' similar but smaller release on the war in Afghanistan.

Great, now do the real work and answer the question: How many of those are attributable to US or coalition forces?

AustonT wrote:Stanford's Ronald Hilton came up with an average of 70-125 deaths per day under Saddam.
I sat here with my Calcumalator and Came up with a few tenths under 60 per day since the US invasion. By the coldest of mathematical reckoning the Iraqi people are better off now than they were. I would hazard to guess that per day average has gone down even more since 2009. So if its cause and effect the cause is the invasion, the effect is approximatly 3650 less people die a year in Iraq.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:Actually, the IBC website says 103,000 -112,000 documented civilian deaths. The Wiki Leaks may add up to 15000 deaths. This brings the total death toll to just over 150k - which includes civilians, host nation military, insurgents, and coalition forces. 80% of those were civilians.

Since civilian deaths is the issue at hand, and 153k is the TOTAL number of deaths estimated by IBC in the conflict to date, his math is at least plausible although I haven't actually crunched the numbers.

EDIT: Actually, AustonT's numbers don't specify civilian versus total. However, I am fairly confident that Stanford's numbers probably refer to civilians.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Great, now do the real work and answer the question: How many of those are attributable to US or coalition forces?

THEY ALL DIED AFTER THE INVASION! I think it's known as cause and effect.

Deadly Afghanistan air strike killed 142

The controversial bombing in the province of Kunduz on September 4 was ordered by a German colonel to take out two stolen fuel trucks.

In the aftermath of the strike, German authorities claimed there had been no civilian casualties.

But NATO sources say the death toll reached 142.

Now both top German general Wolfgang Schneiderhan and secretary of state – equivalent to a deputy minister – Peter Wichert are out of their jobs having taken responsibility for the disastrous bombing.

For days after the attack, then-Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung claimed there had been no civilian casualties.

But he must have known better, according to documentation he would have had access to have had at the time. Was the truth hidden?

Top secret videos and an up-till-now secret army report seemingly prove that Jung’s Ministry from the outset had clear knowledge of civilian casualties as well as the unclear intelligence before the strike.

The previously-unseen military police report was consciously held back from the relevant public prosecutor’s office, according to BILD information.

A 42-document report, a copy of which BILD has exclusive access to, records at which point information about the civilian victims was sent from the German regional command in Masar-i-Sharif to Bundeswehr Operations Command in Potsdam, Germany.

Even though the information gives a completely different picture to what was released, Minister Jung repeatedly claimed in interviews and press conferences that “mainly Taliban terrorists” were hit.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

In an interview with ‘BILD am SONNTAG’ on September 6 – two days after the air strike –then-Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said: “According to all the information I currently have, only Taliban terrorists were killed in the operation carried out by US aircraft.”

BUT – on the evening of September 4, just a few hours after the air strike, German regional command in Masar-i-Sharif sent clear reports that there had been civilian casualties, a fact stated by the military police in document 32 of the report.

According to the report, there were “six patients between ten and 20 years old” at the hospital in Kunduz – so even children had been affected by the bombing.

Regional Command also reported two teenage-sized bodies in the hospital.

A German chief physician at Regional Command wrote in a report submitted to Potsdam on the evening of September 4, first of a child and later of two boys “about 14 years old” with “open breakage” and “shrapnel” wounds.

And in answer to its NATO allies, German Regional Command said on the evening of September 4 that before the air strike, Taliban fighters had stormed a mosque and “forced several villagers to help use tractors to salvage petrol. 14 of them have since disappeared.”

In simple terms – not everyone with the tankers were Taliban – and Jung’s commanders knew it!

BAD INTELLIGENCE

On September 8, Jung showed his support in the German Bundestag parliament for Colonel Georg Klein, who had ordered the air strike: “He had clear intelligence indicating that those involved were exclusively enemies of the state.”

HOWEVER – at the time, Jung’s Ministry was well aware that Colonel Klein had made his decision based on unclear video footage and statements made by an Afghan informant who had not been near the fuel lorries.

After reviewing the video footage, NATO released a statement claiming that it would have been impossible for Colonel Klein “to confirm the informant’s information based on the footage.”

The report of NATO’s ‘Initial Action Team’ (document 33 of the Military Police report) was presented to Jung’s Ministry.

Even larger doubts exist over the credibility of the informant’s statements, which lead to Colonel Klein’s decision to go ahead with the bombing.

It was reported by Brigade General Jörg Vollmer, commander of the German troops in Afghanistan and Klein’s boss, on the evening of September 4 to the Bundeswehr Operations Command (document 22) that the informant couldn’t see the fuel lorries.

His report said: “The contact was near the incident without line-of-sight, but on the phone with the INS.”

Jung’s Ministry also had statements from Colonel Klein, showing his decision was based on speculation: “A sand bank in a river is such an unusual place, that the people there must have been insurgents” – Klein’s explanation from September 4.

In plain language – at the time of his speech in front of the Bundestag, Jung must have known that the Colonel had no concrete evidence.

The military police report evaluates the events from September 4 as critical, and states that the clarification of the unanswered questions and the possible failures are of particular importance, “as the evaluation of the information to hand at the PRT (German military police base) in Kunduz made it clear that the air strike would and did lead to many dead and injured, and that the events prior to and after the incident was not adequately handled.”