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Who Died? - Refused

Liberating The Iraqi People

25,000 Civilians Killed In Iraq War

The Iraq Body Count—a London-based group comprising academics and human rights and anti-war activists—said on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005. The group said 42,500 injuries were recorded as well.

The report also said that "U.S.-led forces were sole killers of 37% of civilian victims" and that "anti-occupation forces were sole killers of 9% of civilian victims." It added that "criminals killed 36% of all civilians."

I wonder how they differentiate between anti-occupation forces and "criminals." By criminals do they just mean common street crime, or unsolved killings? Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, mentions something that might fall into the "criminal" category [no link]:

There is increasing evidence that the Iraqi police forces, now under Shi'ite control, are carrying out systematic revenge killings against Sunnis in Baghdad. The bodies now showing up at the morgue have obvious signs of handcuffing and blindfolding and evidence of being tortured before death. U.S. sources indicate that the suspicious killings have reached the rate of almost 700 per month.

The police are supervised by the Shi'ite-run Ministry of Interior, hich claims the killings are being carried out by insurgents wearing stolen police uniforms. But American intelligence sources disagree, noting that many of the killers appear to be actual policemen carrying the expensive standard-issue Glocks and driving Toyota Land Cruisers.

Just like old times, a police force disappearing people. In somewhat of a departure from old times, Democracy Arsenal notes that the...

...latest word is that Iraq's draft constitution will roll back the rights and freedoms of women in the name of Shaaria (Koranic law). The draft provides that family law matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance would be governed by religious law based on the sect to which the woman's family belongs.

This would require Shi'ite women to get their families' permission to marry and give men, but not women, liberal rights to divorce. This would replace a body of law that has for the past few decades been among the region's most progressive in its treatment of women, according them freedom to marry who they please and requiring judicial oversight of divorces.

Keep in mind that in the past few decades, especially before the 1990 Gulf War, Iraqi women were among the—if not the—most educated and free women in the Arab world (aside from the fact that Saddam and his sons could and did kidnap and rape them at will, of course). And just so you don't forget the current situation in Iraq, Reuters reports that just yesterday:

• In the northeastern city of Baquba, guerrillas in two cars attacked a van taking Iraqi workers to the local US military base, killing 13 persons, including 3 unrelated persons in another car, into which the van crashed when its driver was shot.
  
• In the village of Abu Khamis, just 3 miles south of Baquba, guerrillas assassinated a member of the local municipal council, Qasim Ahmad.
  
• Guerrillas near Mahmudiya south of Baghdad used a roadside bomb to kill two policemen and wound four others.
  
• In Samarra just north of Baghdad, guerrillas fired on a police car in the center of the city, killing a policeman, Col. Allam Muhammad. Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports two persons dead in clashes between guerrillas and a joint US-Iraqi military patrol.
  
• Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that three Iraqi troops were wounded by a roadside bomb in al-Mu'tasim, east of Samarra.
  
• The same source says a roadside bomb in Balad north of Baghdad killed two troops and wounded one civilian.
  
• Guerrillas in Baiji assassinated a businessman, Khammas al-Qaisi, 39, in the west of the city.
  
• In Tikrit, guerrillas used a bomb to kill a police guard.
  
• In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, guerrillas targeted a police patrol with a roadside bomb, killing one policeman and one civilian, and injuring 3 others.

So the insurgency is "in it's last throes" apparently, and everything is running smoothly. And the experiment continues ...