The thing that upsets me about this is that it won't work its way into conventional wisdom -- the conventional wisdom will still be that we took great pains to avoid harm to civilians, and that our efforts were successful....

Surveys pointing to high civilian death toll in Iraq

Preliminary reports suggest casualties well above the Gulf War.

Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country....

Such a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam.

Though it is still too early for anything like a definitive estimate, the surveyors warn, preliminary reports from hospitals, morgues, mosques, and homes point to a level of civilian casualties far exceeding the Gulf War, when 3,500 civilians are thought to have died....

"The biggest contrast between Afghanistan (where an estimated 1,800 civilians died during the US-led campaign there in 2001) and Iraq is that Afghanistan was predominantly an air war and this was a ground/air battle," says Reuben Brigety, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"Air wars are not flawless, but if you have precision weapons you can do a lot to make them more accurate," he adds. "The same is not yet true of ground combat. It is clear the ground battle took a toll; ground war is nasty."

Dr. Brigety and his colleagues in Baghdad say they are especially concerned by the wide use of cluster bombs during the war in Iraq....

--Christian Science Monitor

(Link from Rational Enquirer and Cursor.)