Artillery: October 22, 2004

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Coalition soldiers are not the only ones getting killed in Iraq. Journalists have died as well, including 44 foreign reporters, and several dozen Iraqi journalists. The anti-government forces have been particularly enthusiastic about terrorizing Iraqi journalists. Many have left their jobs, or done their journalism secretly to avoid the retribution. There are several thousand journalists in Iraq, most of them Iraqi. Many foreign news organizations use Iraqi journalists, if only because a foreign reporter is easier for the anti-government gunmen to spot. 

Foreign civilians have also taken a beating. About 155 of the 100,000 or so foreign workers have been killed in the last 18 months. 

Getting a handle on Iraqi losses is difficult, because the government reporting system is not yet fully functional. Moreover, the anti-government forces often keep the deaths of many of their armed members secret, so that illegal activity can be kept hidden. When deaths are reported, they try to assert that the dead man was an innocent civilian. The total Iraqi dead, out of a population of some 25 million, has been 15-20,000 over the last 18 months. 

 

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