Show T Wars War's toll on no Iraqis J triples Raghavan Raghavan The ashington The Post More re than Irai Iraq civilians and police died die violently in the thc latter hal half of 2006 according c to Iraqi Irac H Health Ministry M statistics a sha sharp increase that coincide with ith rising sectarian strife since the tte February bomb bombing of a landmark Shiite shrine In In the first six months month of of f I last st year Iraqi Iraq civilians and police were werf ki killed led but that number more than tripled to 17 1731 in ithe the latter Iatter half of the year ear according to data provided by a Health Ministry official with direct knowledge of th the statistics The official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not t authorized to release the information said those numbers remained incomplete suggesting the final tally of violent deaths could be higher Much of last years year's politically motivated bloodshed unfolded in Baghdad The Bush administration is considering sending more American troops troops' there as the newly ascendant Democrats in Congress press for a US U.S. military withdrawal Bringing stability and rule of law to the capital is a cornerstone of the administrations administration's strategy to exit Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al- al alM M Maliki liki over the weekend announced his own security push to tame Baghdad's sectarian strife Last years year's spike in casualties o occurred despite an ambitious' ambitious US U.S. military operation in the capital T Together gether Forward that involved thousands of US U.S. and nd Iraqi troops cordoning off some of the deadliest neighborhoods and performing to house-to-house searches We have been in a reaction mode in many ways to the events that occurred because of the February bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra and that tat began a cycle of sectarian violence that weve we've been working very very very hard to keep under co control tro I Tt Lt Gen Peter Chiarelli the former fonner second-highest second ranking commander in Iraq told reporters last month The Health Ministry's full year full full death toll although incomplete is higher than a figure of violent deaths of civilians police and soldiers reported on Jan 1 by Iraq's ministries of defense health and interior The United Nations in a November 2006 report estimated more than Iraqi civilians the had died violently in first 10 months of 2006 but that count was also disputed by the thc government The differences in these numbers could not be reconciled Iraq's death toll from violence is controversial because it provides a vivid report card on the difficulty Iraqi efforts to of US U.S. and bring order to the country US U.S. government nor the military provides death totals for Iraqis It is often very difficult on the to gain consensus casualties numbers of of really is a aI in Iraq It government of Iraq issue I said Lt LL Col Christopher i Garver Carver a US U.S. military I 1 t spokesman pok sm m. m US U.S. and Iraqi officials have discouraged Baghdad's medical officials from releasing morgue counts The Iraqi government does not provide a single official death toll leaving it up to individual ministries to release data dat which is often conflicting The Health Ministry compiles data from morgues across the nation and from government hospitals Those figures include Iraqis who were killed in bombings terrorist acts militia attacks roadside explosions drive-by drive shootings kidnappings and other acts of violence They also include the numerous unidentified corpses corpses that turn up virtually every everyday day often handcuffed and showing signs of torture The Health Ministry data are believed to be more reliable than those issued by other sources because they are based solely on death leath certificates But the Health Ministry as a policy does not publicly release these hese death statistics The ministry is under the control of if the Shiite religious party of f al whose Mahdi Army militia is behind much of the sectarian killing tilling The numbers are considered so sensitive that ome some Iraqi officials when old told of the Health Ministry rata data dismissed them as exaggerated but at the same ime time did not offer any other umbers numbers for the death tolls Previous reports about such ody body counts have drawn similar denials I dont don't know of these umbers numbers said Health Ministry spokesman Qasim Yahya The Ministry of Health does not give out uch such numbers He referred all comments to o the Interior Ministry which he said was responsible for releasing such statistics Brig Karim Abdul-Karim Khalaf an Interior Ministry spokesman said the he Health M Ministry vi n ed to o give out such statistics Its It's a very big number Its It's not close to the truth The Thc Interior Ministry's figures are based primarily ti u on data from police stations l police units and emergency patrols Those numbers donot do donot donot not include the wounded who die later from their injuries those kidnapped and later killed armed men who die in clashes with US U.S. or Iraqi forces unidentified bodies and other categories of deaths Another source of data is the United Nations which relies on reports it culls from the Health Ministry the Baghdad morgue and government hospitals and releases death figures I T T 1 every two months 1 me 11 ie organization does not include Iraqi police or military casualties in its reports The United Nations reported violent deaths of civilians in the first 10 months of 2006 including killed according to in October issued in its latest report November At that time Iraqi government spokesman Ah All Dabbagh disputed the UN U.N. inaccurate and numbers as exaggerated because they were not based on official government reports J |