Fact or Fiction ? Supressing the death toll in Iraq

HI as im sure most know i dont post much, more of a voyuer,lol

I have friends and family in the miltary of both US & UK.

This weekend just passed we had a small celerbration for one of these persons who just retired from the miltary, there was something like 30 guests ranged from a major to me(armchair general.lol). during the course of the night the iraq war was mentioned many times, after some more brandy lips started to losen, I was shocked with what i was told next, according to all of them the numbers of wounded and dead, both british and american where pure BS, they went on to explain that its how they count the dead. for example for someone to be a combat dead, he must have to died in a certain way ( IED?) and his body must be indentifiable(in words still intacted) his death must also occure in a certain area. If the soldier is blown to bits he didnt die in combat, if he died in a certain area he also didnt die in combat. (too say the least i was shocked)
Also certain Deaths are hide via telling there next of kin, you son/daughter died in the war interrorism in a special mission, we cant tell you any more etc, but he died a hero.
None of them knew the real numbers parsay , but from what they had seen and heard they guessed between 3000 dead (all colation members including private security) to over 8000 dead. all agreed how ever that the total wounded was over 40,000

Im sure we all know that given the way of world today(public outcry over large deaths, one could understand why such numbers are supressed if infact they are.

I always remember something a close friend of mine always said. " theres two sides to every story, what makes you think your side is the one speaking the truth?"


[edit on 17-1-2005 by John bull 1]

Ok, the government would no hide the death toll of soldiers, yes it can delay them for "security" reasons but eventually it has to come out, families are notify is not delay on that.

To many groups out there keeping track of it also.

While openly I agree with Marg6043 that the government would not/COULD not do such a thing, I have been having some suspicions of it.

Hear me out a bit:

How would we actually know what they report is true? How? They could say anything at all, and unless the citizens had a way of counting people serving vs. deaths reported there is no way of really monitoring this.

I think somebody should start to tally this up. Maybe a census or something asking each family of soldiers serving in Iraq the status of their loved one. And then tally that up. I cant imagine they are lying to individual families, but so long as the effected families aren’t comparing notes we will never know.

Lets start comparing notes and see if the numbers are real…


[edit on 17-1-2005 by skippytjc]

I tell you why my husbands works in a military base they get everyday the memos with the death toll of active duty military on Iraq. So he told me as a retired Marine that US can not hide the death toll in any war.

Delay yes but not hide.

I've long suspected that the true death toll is not being disclosed. I suspect that many more Americans have been killed than they're telling us. This became my suspicion when the first few deaths occurred, and it was always operator error, or mechanical failure. If you remember, that's how the war started out. No one was killed by Iraqis for awhile.

I dont deny what you say Marg, and im sure its 100% accurate. But that memo itself maybe in question. And I agree, if they are padding the numbers I think the country wouldnt stand for it, it would be about the most serious thing they could do. And as far as delaying is concerned, that scares me. They could be "delaying" the deaths of thousands for all we know. Thats the same as lying to me. The reason why delaying would be terrible is because the only reason for it would be political gain and opinions. During election time I would call it an outright scandal deserving of criminal reprecussions.

Imagine if the death toll is many times what has been reported and we dont find out until after the inauguration? What a scandal that would be. Even Dubya's closest supporters couldnt deny that one.

Anyways, I certainly hope you are right

spoke to a friend of mine today(former 7th sfg)

he said its nothing knew about hiding figures, he said they did it in honduros/el salvador when he was there.
he suggested i looked around some old veteran posts, as he told me the vietnam war figures are also wrong. this is what i found..

U.S. Suffered Over 20,000 More Military Dead During Vietnam War Than Previously Reported
www.usvetdsp.com...

after talking to him, he gave some good ideas on how to find the truth.

1) find all the records of reserve mobilized and de mobilized
2) match the numbers against the current in totals

if you have the number of troops in iraq you simple minus the amount mobilized every week too keep that number the same. from that we could work out a good guess at wounded/dead totals per week.

he also said it makes sense to him that the numbers are so high, he said it explains why the honor guard from alrington was sent to iraq.

he also told me that alot of the deaths could be private mercs. he said there was atleast 20,000 of them in iraq now. and about the areas where deaths wouldnt be counted he said that most likey would be any area deemed safe or taken or controlled, you cant die from combat injuries if your own army controls that place as that would mean you dont control it.

as a foot note. he said various reason we lie about body counts.

1) political
2) denie enemy any proganda
3) would play havoc with recruiting
4) american would become a isloated country once again (vietnam snydrome)
5) theres a limit before the public decides its time for it to stop

Well remember nam had a lot of missing in action and the death toll was in the thousands, Iraq is not so, so the comparison is a littler bit off here.

Iraq is not by any means a Vietnam now if we get into Iran I believe that may change.

I agree with Marg, there's no way the gov't can cover this up. They must notify the families as soon as possible after the operation and they release full lists of the KIA so if a family member doesn't see their relative on it, they'd raise hell.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I agree with Marg, there's no way the gov't can cover this up. They must notify the families as soon as possible after the operation and they release full lists of the KIA so if a family member doesn't see their relative on it, they'd raise hell.

You are 100% right, but are those families comparing notes? No they arent. The government isnt hiding it from the families, but unless the families are talking to each other, it means nothing as far as overall count is concerned.

[edit on 17-1-2005 by skippytjc]

I dont know that they are..

But I think it would be relatively easy. Tell the family, dont update the larger lists.

Someone asks why there family members name isnt there update it immediatly with that one name. Cite clerical errors, and processing delays.

Also I don't beleive many people will go look at the larger lists. Why would they? Their goverment already said he's dead.. they are in shock, disgust and many other things. I bet the last thing on their mind is to check and make sure their dead son was counted on some other list. Most families couldn't give a rats.. at that point they know their son/daughter/etc is dead.

Dear group,

I have absolutely no doubt that the body count of dead and wounded coalition troops..most particularly American troops ..is being grossly under-reported.
I maintain contacts in both of the militaries I've served..many of whom are actively engaged in Baghdad's green zone...[It may surprise you to know that the Turks and Israelis, the Pakistanis and a few other non-conventional uniformed forces not commonly mentioned are undertaking missions that have nothing to do with Iraq proper...]
What they are reporting is that casualties are indeed constantly being tweaked down or not reported. I have heard of serious morale problems being swept under the carpet..massive amounts of temporary a.w.o.l. 's and soldiers on the sick rosters because they are suffering trauma and stress resulting from extended tours of duty, attendant personal debt/family problems..and what can only be called chronic fatigue.
The paranoia about filming body-bag stuffers or returning coffins is, if anything, stronger than ever..Press access to certain areas ofd the country and certain senior officials is more restricted now than in the early days of the invasion.
And , before I forget....the VA hospitals across the country are also upset with folks in Washington because they are attempting to treat more wounded than is being officially acknowledged and they are in urgent need of funding...but to make their case they w ould have to go against the official party line..which has determined that [for nopw at least] the body count will not be challenged ...Reason: national security. What else.

Shai nailed it. I bet, just my opinion now, that we can safely triple the stated figure.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I agree with Marg, there's no way the gov't can cover this up. They must notify the families as soon as possible after the operation and they release full lists of the KIA so if a family member doesn't see their relative on it, they'd raise hell.

Who says that keeps them from delivering a phony count? Do you think all the families of the dead are getting together to do a dead soldier count? How do you imply that that would show any discrepancy? They probably have no idea who has died, besides their friends and/or family. I fail to see how that makes even the slightest difference in what's reported to the public.

It wouldn't surprise me if 10,000 soldiers have died in Iraq. Who would miss them, besides their immediate relatives and friends? Who's going to know the difference, until the war is well over and an accurate list of dead is released? When it is, and the count is way off, it'll just be another, "Oops, we were wrong. Would ya look at that?"

[edit on 17-1-2005 by Damned]

Ok i did a little research.

from us mil sites.www.dod.mil...

i used the jan 2005 and last dec 2004 to compare. my maths maybe wrong so forgive or correct me if im wrong

Total mobilized 193,375

4,936 more reservists since week before added.

now if we subtract the new reserves from the total figure we should have the same as last weeks press release minus the wounded and dead (all those not returned to duty)

week pervious as follows

total 186,564

new added 198

so we do this( remember correct me if im wrong)

193,375 - 4,936 = 188,439

now compare that to the week pervious

186,564 to 188,439

Theres 1875 soldiers who have disappeared from the total numbers the DOD gives out its self.
From this i can only concluded that 1875 were wounded/ killed /stress or some other injurery that stopped them being counted

now if we lost 1875 in a few days how many are dead. something smells here and its not me...




-

=

I dont think its possible to hide the deaths but the injurys are very easy to hide, they could claim that injurys were not combat related as the troops were not in direct combat although the injurys may be directly related to the combat

I think you missed where they deployed 1875? It's too much of a coincidence that that's the exact number.

www.dod.mil...

I dont trust my government.

I ESPECIALLY dont trust anyone in the military, fbi, cia, etc.

I would say this article is FACT unfortunatly. Just the way we fight. I seen video of our ground troops, and I would of never of even thought about joining in high school if I knew we sucked this bad.

We wont invade Iran, Syria, or anyone else. We suck that bad. And if we do there will be a draft and we will probably find ourselves in a stalemate.

Oh well as long as a terrorist doesnt blow me up I could care less.

In response to Dammed.

I didnt use that release its brand new. i used Jan 15th 2005 and dec 29th 2005

guess i missed the jan 5th report(my bad). but in reading my brain decided something else is wrong here. surely the totals wouldnt match because of any wounded or dead?

someone with more brains than me needs look at this carefully i believe

Those reports don't report the number alive in Iraq now, only those who have been mobilized. (deployed from the US) They're of no help. They can also just as easily lie about how many are alive, or how many were sent.

[edit on 17-1-2005 by Damned]