The US army does not keep a tally of the people it kills or injures. “We do not do body counts” we are told by General Tommy Franks.
Why then can the US military announce confidently that 95 per cent of the dead in the current fighting in Falluja are insurgents? If they don’t count bodies, how do they know?
Since many of these bodies are lying the street decomposing where no one can collect them, how do the Marines know who they are?
If the death toll is 700 and the Iraqi hospitals are claiming their morgues contain 120 dead children and 200 dead women, how do the marines arrive at the proportional figure of 95% for total insurgent fatalities?
Why are the journalists in the towns reporting that the US soldiers are firing indiscriminately on the population of the town?
If you don’t count bodies, why are you telling us who they are?
April 13, 2004