Measuring Civilian Casualties In Iraq

In Wartime, What Can Be Judged By How Many Civilians Die?

(CBS)  One hundred and seventy people died in a recent weekend truck bombing of a small town in northern Iraq, according to U.S. military figures.

That would make it the worst civilian death toll of the entire war. Civilian casualties are just one measure of chaos in Iraq, but for Michael O’Hanlon, who publishes an index of war-related statistics for the Brookings Institution, it is the key, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

“Civilian fatalities really is the crux of the matter because Iraq is very violent and if it doesn't get less violent, you can't see the economy improve, you can't see political confidence grow, you can't see these hatreds diminish,” O’Hanlon says.

U.S. military officers said civilian casualties were starting to come down — by 46 percent in June. However, the military will not release the actual numbers because they can't be verified. But all it takes is one horrific bombing — like the one last weekend — to reverse the trend and add to an already staggering toll of innocent Iraqis.

There are heated disputes over exactly how many Iraqis have died.

“I would put the number at somewhere between 75 and 100,000 but it could be higher,” says former Pentagon researcher Colin Kahl.

There is one estimate that puts Iraqi civilian casualties at more than 650,000, which would eclipse Vietnam, the last time the U.S. fought a counterinsurgency war. By the most conservative estimate, half a million Vietnamese civilians were killed in the last eight years of that war, compared to the first five of Iraq.

“I think that the Iraq war is one of the most horrific civil wars in recent memory. It's certainly in its degree of brutality,” Kahl says.

He estimates about 10 percent of the deaths have been caused by the U.S. military and 90 percent by insurgents with their car bombings and sectarian killings. But, says Kahl, the U.S. can not escape blame for any of it.

“To the degree to which our occupation was mishandled or not competently handled and that set in motion a chain of events that has contributed to the volatility and instability that we see today claiming thousands of Iraqi lives, we have some deeper responsibility for that,” Kahl says.

History will judge whether Iraq is as brutal a war as Vietnam. But the bottom line is the same: In both wars, the U.S. failed to protect the population.