The media are minimising US and British war crimes in Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1636543,00.html
The reporting of the Iraqi death toll - both in its scale and account
of who is doing the killing - is profoundly dishonest
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 8, 2005
The Guardian
We were told that the Iraqis don't count. Before the invasion began,
the head of US central command, General Thomas Franks, boasted that "we
don't do body counts". His claim was repeated by Donald Rumsfeld in
November 2003 ("We don't do body counts on other people") and the
Pentagon last January ("The only thing we keep track of is casualties
for US troops and civilians").
But it's not true. Almost every week the Pentagon claims to have killed
50 or 70 or 100 insurgents in its latest assault on the latest
stronghold of the ubiquitous monster Zarqawi. In May the chairman of
the joint chiefs of staff said that his soldiers had killed 250 of
Zarqawi's "closest lieutenants" (or so 500 of his best friends had told
him). But last week, the Pentagon did something new. Buried in its
latest security report to Congress is a bar chart labelled "average
daily casualties - Iraqi and coalition. 1 Jan 04-16 Sep 05". The claim
that it kept no track of Iraqi deaths was false.
George Monbiot
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