In its first comprehensive tally released since the war began, Iraq pegs a violence casualty tally of at least 85,694 in the four-year period. The Human Rights Ministry report also declares that 147,195 were wounded during the same period. We have seen pictures of the gory and tragic deaths of Iraqi civilians (men, women, elderly, and children), as well as of Iraqi military and police, during one of the most controversial wars ever waged.

The published figures do ‘not cover US military deaths, insurgents, or foreigners, including contractors or U.S. forces. And it did not include the first months of the war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.’ The report explains that ‘statistics from the initial months of the war have been extremely difficult to obtain as there was no functioning Iraqi government during that time and the interim government was not seated until mid-2004. The difficulties of quantifying the loss were compounded by the fact that records were not always compiled centrally, and the brutal insurgency sharply limited on-the-scene reporting. The U.S. military never shared its data.’

This first ever official tally by the government of Iraq had previously been ‘one of the closely guarded secrets of the war,’

Additional death data from the ministry’s report on the four-year period covered: 1,279 children, 2,334 women, 263 university professors, 21 judges, 95 lawyers, and 269 journalists perished. ‘The toll also included 15,000 unidentified bodies not claimed by families and buried in special cemeteries.’

Violence is said to have dramatically declined since the war’s worst years, but ‘Iraq’s death toll continued to climb.’ Just very recently, three near simultaneous blasts struck the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least six people.

Via Newser