Any chance casualties are being under-reported?

[Sliverofhope]

Reading around the internet, I'm getting the impression that at least a few military families seem to think the number of casualties they hear from family members do not equal the casualties being reported in the news. Clearly it would not be out of the realm of possibility for Bush to want to suppress such information. And then there was that story in a Pakistani newspaper of perhaps questionable origin that casualties in Afghanistan were being kept in a military base to be sent home when it was more politically viable for the Bush team. My cousin was over there, but in Kuwait and didn't see much action, and is now home, so I can't get much information I think from her. Is anyone else getting this impression?

[Sagan]

1. I think you can just about count on it..

Do you think the media will get to the bottom of the story? Don't make me laugh.

I'm sure there's some wonkish Pentagon rationale behind it so that the perpetrators can sleep at night. Something along the lines of classifying casualty reports as "psyops" and not wanting to encourage the enemy, blah blah blah.

There were disturbing trends in casualty reports from Afghanistan that make me very very untrusting regarding the ones from Iraq.

[Redleg]

2. They are not regularly reporting wounded troops.

They have reported killed troops but not wounded (at least not often). The usual ratio of killed to wounded is something like 1:5. If 200 troops were killed in combat then 1000 is a realistic number for wounded. Tommy Franks admitted that there are between 10 and 25 armed engagements every day in Iraq.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. Actually, I think I saw a report of wounded the other day.

Aboput 1050, IIRC, meaning that your estimate is amazingly close.

[Maple]

3. Well it wouldn't be

hard to hide.

And Franks said they were getting between 10 and 25 attacks A DAY.

[kainah]

4. Casualties ARE being underreported

There is no question in my mind. I have kept a poster and list of the American dead soldiers in Iraq since the day the war began. Whenever names become available, I add them. Increasingly, I find that I have the EXACT number of names as those they are reporting as dead. That was NEVER true in the beginning because, obviously, it takes the Pentagon a few days, at least, to report the actual names of those dead. So what this tells me (at least) is that the number you are hearing is now the number of the names that have been released and is, at best, at least a week behind the actual casualty totals.

For anyone who might be interested, the names of the deceased are posted as a downloadable and printable pdf file on the Stand Up for Peace website at this link: http://www.speakingformyself.net/wyomingdissent/american_soldiers_dead.PDF

BTW, what's posted may be a few days behind the names I have here.

[KG]

5. is there any doubt?

is there ANY subject bushco won't lie about?

[flamingyouth]

6. I'd bet the bank on it

Sad but true.

LBJ used similar tactics during VietNam, but such things cannot stay secret forever. As Sen. Robert Byrd so eloquently said recently, "The truth has a way of coming out."

[AnAmerican]

7. I would say it is a virtual certainty

n/t

[alcuno]

8. It gets reported, but only rarely

We hear about soldiers who are killed outright, but not about those who later die from their injuries. I heard within the last three days that casualties were around 1050.

Here's a good site for US war dead. They are listed by date of death rather than the way the DoD does it; alphabetically.. http://www.pigstye.net/iraq/

[Vitruvius]

9. The gov't used the same device to hide Vietnam war deaths --

if somebody was shot, but survived until the next week, he didn't count as a combat death. And there were rumors at the time that deaths were fraudulently shifted from the combat to noncombat death category by recording a false time-of-death.

[neuvocat]

12. Looks like CNN has decided to stop reporting the casualties

Its staying constant at 260 even though there were at least two other deaths since. I guess that "Bring 'em on" comment has something to do with it.

[leftofthedial]

10. Put it this way . . . There is NO CHANCE

that reports are accurate.

For starters, all we hear about is deaths.

Second, the only total number we hear is the killed in action.

[southernfried]

13. I've heard killed and wounded and split of combat v non-combat

better check a little harder

[southernfried]

11. very unlikely, way too easy to verify

even if most media people are too stupid to know how

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Not all that easy to verify.

The Russians did a pretty good job of controlling information on their war dead in Afghanistan, and I don't think their control over the press was any better than what Shrubco has.

All you do is shift categories (the reverse Jessica Lynch technique) or not report them nationally. The deaths show up in local papers & TV news, but don't get counted nationally.

[zbdent]

16. Well, here's a good way to keep score

Lists the date of death, some info to cause (you'd be surprised how many poor drivers we shipped to Iraq, what with all the auto accidents causing deaths over there), and location of soldier at the time.

Oh, and it's news releases from the department of defense, so there is some accuracy implied. Now, this is not saying that this is the "liberal media" . . .

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/

[revcarol]

17. Under-reporting the number of wounded who do not go

"out of theatre" for treatment. Only the ones going to Walter Reed and Germany, or for specialized treatment somewhere in the states, I bet.
Someone who is hospitalized in those complete hospitals in Kuwait for two months is probably not counted, because s/he may return to duty.