SIVACRACY.NET

According to this article in the 11/15/04 NYT, the U.S. military claims to have killed 1,200 to 1,600 "insurgents" in Fallujah. Here is an odd development: Some portion of the 1,200 to 1,600 "insurgent" dead bodies have disappeared. The same article reports:

"American commanders said 38 American servicemembers had been killed and 275 wounded in the Falluja assault, and the commanders estimated that 1,200 to 1,600 insurgents - about half the number thought to have been entrenched in Falluja - had been killed. But there was little evidence of dead insurgents in the streets and warrens where some of the most intense combat took place."

And, the piece later follows up with the observation that: "The absence of insurgent bodies in Falluja has remained an enduring mystery." Let's consider two possible solutions to this mystery. Maybe the military is greatly exagerating how many people it killed. That is actually my preferred explanation, because otherwise I'd have to conclude that the military itself has disposed of the bodies to prevent observation and identification of the corpses. Why would they do this? Because they do not want it revealed that many of the dead are elderly, very young, and/or female, and/or obviously civilians, people with no history of violence caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A few days ago (11/13) the author of Baghdad Burning wrote: "People in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and being buried under tons of concrete and iron... " I hope that the stories are mistaken.

p.s. See also this Greg Palast posting, and the "Iraqi Body Count" site as well.