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News :: International Relations |
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Media Underplays U.S. Death Toll In Iraq |
Current rating: 0 |
by Greg Mitchell
(No verified email address) |
17 Jul 2003
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Soldiers Dead Since May Is 3 Times Official Count |
NEW YORK -- News Analysis
Any way you look at it, the news is bad enough. According to Thursday's press and television reports, 33 U.S. soldiers have now died in combat since President Bush declared an end to the major fighting in the war on May 2. This, of course, is a tragedy for the men killed and their families, and a problem for the White House.
But actually the numbers are much worse -- and rarely reported by the media.
According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States.
Nevertheless, the media continues to report the much lower figure of 33 as if those are the only deaths that count.
A Web site called Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx) is tracking the deaths, by whatever cause, of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, based on official Pentagon and CENTCOM press releases and Army Times and CNN casualty trackers. Their current count is 85 since May 2.
Looking at the entire war, there was much fanfare Thursday over the fact that the latest U.S. combat death this week pushed the official total to 148 -- finally topping the 147 figure for Gulf War 1. However, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, the total number of all U.S. deaths, combat and otherwise, in Iraq is actually 224.
This Web site not only counts deaths, it describes each one in whatever detail (often sketchy) the military provides, along with the name and age and home town of each fatality.
Here we learn, for example, that the most recent non-combat death was Cory Ryan Geurin, age 18, a Marine lance corporal from Santee, Calif. "He was standing post on a palace roof in Babylon when he fell approximately 60 feet," the site said.
On July 13, Jaror C. Puello-Coronado, 36, an Army sergeant, died while "manning a traffic point when the operator of a dump truck lost control of the vehicle."
Another soldier, still officially listed as "Unknown," died on July "from a non-hostile gunshot incident," according to the site.
Before that, on July 9, another Marine Lance Corporal, age 20, died in Kuwait "in a vehicle accident."
Many other deaths are only vaguely described as the "result of non-combat injuries." One recent death occurred in a mine-clearing accident. Others "drowned" or "died of natural causes," and still others lost their lives in a "vehicle accident."
© 2003 VNU eMedia Inc.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com |
Related stories on this site:
Breaking The Silence: Soldiers Speak Out Against War In Iraq
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Citizen Soldiers To Become Citizen Sacrifices To Bush Re-election Campaign? |
by Reuters and Wall Street Journal
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Jul 2003
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Report: U.S. May Call National Guard for Iraq Duty
Thu Jul 17, 2:17 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pentagon could start a call-up of as many as 10,000 U.S. National Guard soldiers by this winter to bolster forces in Iraq and offset a lack of troops from allies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the U.S. military thin, the report said, and soldiers there still face danger every day.
One senior U.S. defense official, asked by the Journal if he had ever seen the Army stretched so thin, said: "Not in my 31 years" of military service.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to sign off later this week on a plan that would set up rotations to relieve Marine and U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Iraq, the newspaper said, citing a Pentagon official.
About 146,000 U.S. troops are serving in postwar Iraq amid mounting security threats. The U.S. death toll of 147 combat deaths has now equaled the number killed in the 1991 Gulf War.
National Guard soldiers would likely not be deployed until March or April after they complete two or three months of training, the paper said. Their lengths of service could last 12 to 16 months each including training.
The Pentagon was driven to consider calling in the troops because some U.S. allies have chosen not to send in large contingents of their own, the report said.
Twenty-one of the Army's 33 active-duty combat brigades are already in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea and the Balkans, the paper said. Three other brigades cannot currently be sent abroad, leaving nine brigades, or 45,000 troops, as relief for deployed soldiers, the report said.
Some of those forces are being held back in case they are needed near North Korea or in Afghanistan, further limiting U.S. options in Iraq, the Journal said. |
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Veterans To Receive Rude Wake-up Call When They Return From Iraq And Try To Use Their Benefits |
by VFW
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Jul 2003
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VFW Outraged at Inadequate Funding for Veterans Health Care
Washington, D.C., July 17, 2003--Officials of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. today expressed anger at yesterday's approval of the VA-HUD Independent Agencies Subcommittee appropriations bill claiming the measure will seriously jeopardize veterans' health care. Take action now!!
The VA-HUD Subcommittee bill, which funds the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal agencies, provides only a $1.4 billion increase over last year's funding level for veterans' health care. VFW officials point out that inflation alone will absorb that meager amount.
According to the VFW, the House and Senate passed budget resolution--the official congressional spending road map--provides a $3.4 billion increase as necessary for timely veterans' health care. For the Congress not to appropriate this amount is a clear betrayal of the assurances made to America's veterans by the House Republican leadership.
The VA-HUD bill includes a proposal to increase co-payments for prescription drugs as well as collecting fees from some veterans for provided medical care.
"Congress is asking some veterans to directly pay or offset the cost of their care. The VFW has always opposed using the dollars collected from veterans and their insurers for non-service-connected care in place of appropriations. This marks the first time that such funds would directly take the place of appropriated dollars," said VFW Commander-in-Chief Ray Sisk.
"The House leadership has deceived us. For months the veterans' community has been assured that fees would not be included as part of the VA funding package. Now we look at this appropriations bill and see that fees will be used to raise revenue. It is another instance where veterans--not the federal government by way of appropriating money--will be paying for their earned health care," Sisk said.
"We are outraged by this appropriation bill since VA projects that 1.1 million veterans will either be pushed out or not even bother trying to access VA health care," said Sisk. "Already, we have hundreds of thousands of veterans waiting six months or more for medical appointments. This bill will compound the problem."
http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.newsDtl&did=1250 |
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Pentagon Retaliates Against GIs Who Spoke Out On TV |
by Robert Collier
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Jul 2003
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Fallujah, Iraq -- Morale is dipping pretty low among U.S. soldiers as they stew in Iraq's broiling heat, get shot at by an increasingly hostile population and get repeated orders to extend their tours of duty.
Ask any grunt standing guard on a 115-degree day what he or she thinks of the open-ended Iraq occupation, and you'll get an earful of colorful complaints.
But going public isn't always easy, as soldiers of the Army's Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division found out after "Good Morning America" aired their complaints.
The brigade's soldiers received word this week from the Pentagon that it was extending their stay, with a vague promise to send them home by September if the security situation allows. They've been away from home since September, and this week's announcement was the third time their mission has been extended.
It was bad news for the division's 12,000 homesick soldiers, who were at the forefront of the force that overthrew Saddam Hussein's government and moved into Baghdad in early April.
On Wednesday morning, when the ABC news show reported from Fallujah, where the division is based, the troops gave the reporters an earful. One soldier said he felt like he'd been "kicked in the guts, slapped in the face." Another demanded that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quit.
The retaliation from Washington was swift.
CAREERS OVER FOR SOME
"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."
First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.
Only two days before the ABC show, similarly bitter sentiments -- with no names attached -- were voiced in an anonymous e-mail circulating around the Internet, allegedly from "the soldiers of the Second Brigade, Third ID."
"Our morale is not high or even low," the letter said. "Our morale is nonexistent. We have been told twice that we were going home, and twice we have received a 'stop' movement to stay in Iraq."
The message, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, concluded: "Our men and women deserve to be treated like the heroes they are, not like farm animals. Our men and women deserve to see their loved ones again and deserve to come home."
After this one-two punch, it was perhaps natural that on Thursday, the same troops and officers who had been garrulous and outspoken in previous visits were quiet, and most declined to speak on the record. During a visit to Fallujah, a small city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, military officials expressed intense chagrin about the bad publicity. And they slammed the ABC reporters for focusing on the soldiers' criticism of Rumsfeld, Bush and other officials and implying that they are unwilling to carry out their mission.
COMPLAINTS CALLED ROUTINE
"Soldiers have bitched since the beginning of time," said Capt. James Brownlee, the public affairs officer for the Second Brigade. "That's part of being a soldier. They bitch. But what does 'bad morale' really mean? That they're not combat-ready or loyal? Nobody here fits that definition."
The nervousness of the brass has a venerable history. It has long been a practice in American democracy that the military do not criticize the nation's civilian leaders, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur found out in 1951, when he criticized President Harry Truman's Korean War strategy -- and was promptly fired.
Yet several U.S. officers said privately that troop morale is indeed low. "The problem is not the heat," said one high-ranking officer. "Soldiers get used to that. The problem is getting orders to go home, so your wife gets all psyched about it, then getting them reversed, and then having the same process two more times."
In Baghdad, average soldiers from other Army brigades are eager to spill similar complaints.
"I'm not sure people in Washington really know what it's like here," said Corp. Todd Burchard as he stood on a street corner, sweating profusely and looking bored. "We'll keep doing our jobs as best as anyone can, but we shouldn't have to still be here in the first place."
Nearby, Pfc. Jason Ring stood next to his Humvee. "We liberated Iraq. Now the people here don't want us here, and guess what? We don't want to be here either," he said. "So why are we still here? Why don't they bring us home?"
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com
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Worse Than Gay: Canadian! |
by PR WATCH.ORG
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Jul 2003
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After ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman reported on complaints from U.S. soldiers in Iraq (see story above and http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq030716_Abizaid.html), the White House tried to smear him by leaking the word to cyber-gossip Matt Drudge that Kofman is gay and Canadian. (Oooh!) If they feel that this sort of personal information is important for public discourse, now is as good a time as any to mention that Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian, and there are some colorful stories about Drudge's own sexual preferences (http://www.tvguide.com/newsgossip/insider/000307d.asp).
Source: Washington Post, July 17, 2003
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/ |
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