Officials Revise Hotel Death Toll Downward

[nicecakes]

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2004 – Coalition officials said today that the March 17 bombing of Baghdad's Mount Lebanon Hotel killed only seven people, not 27 as previously believed.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Combined Joint Task Force 7, briefed reporters on the bombing at a Baghdad news conference.

Kimmitt said a suicide bomber triggered the device inside a vehicle and died in the explosion.

"The bomb was estimated to consist of approximately 1,000 pounds of explosives and artillery shells," he said. The bomb caused structural damage to the hotel and a number of nearby buildings.

Kimmitt said that Iraqi Police service and the Iraqi Ministry of Health revised casualty figures to seven killed and 35 wounded. Early estimates in such estimates often are wrong, Kimmitt explained, and as more time passes, the facts become progressively more apparent. No coalition personnel were injured he said, although coalition forces were dispatched to provide assistance.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2004/n03182004_200403182.html

[Dogmudgeon]

1. If they keep this up ...

... they'll be reporting that seven babies were born during the evacuation of the building.

--bkl

[nicecakes]

3. Or they'll find someone fudged the numbers one way or the other

Either way there is a discretion that needs reconciled.

[nicecakes]

2. I didn't see this on the nightly news.

Why would this news be surpressed?

[displacedvermoter]

4. Because they lie about absolutely everything,

it is their first reaction regardless of the situation.

[nicecakes]

5. Could we narrow down just exactly who "they" are?

In order to better locate the truth we must first eliminate the lies.

[Almost_there]

8. Who are "they"?

Seriosly, I know that death toll figures can be inaccurately reported, especially when the fires are still burning, so to speak. Having responded to car wrecks, fires etc, communications are frantic at the outset, and assumptions are made off of speculations about what happened. I don't think that this is the bushistas lying, I think it was just snap to reporting.

I recall on September 11, 2001 seeing "50,000 people work in the buildings!" followed shortly by "Up to 30,000 casualties!" and then "tens of thousands may have perished", and until you get a solid grip on the situation, heresay is followed by rumor, and is verified by supposition.

So, I don't think these are "lies". We all saw the burning wreckage of the hotel, 27 or 17, it doesn't matter. Innocent people who were alive one minute are now no longer with us. That's what matters. I just don't wear a tinfoil hat on certain things, and if we can't believe any news source, then why bother? Why bother believing anything? Maybe the moon landing WAS fabricated by George Lucas. Maybe only 23 people died on September 11. There must be some belief before you can have utter disbelief.

~Almost

[NNN0LHI]

9. Nice post A_t. Welcome to DU n/t

[Kool Kitty]

10. I don't think it was suppressed, I just think they (the reporters)

just plain don't know. They have to come up with something, some number, because they have to fill a 24-hour news cycle. It looked so bad that they probably just assumed (perhaps wrongly) that it had to be bad (the death toll). (Not that the bombing wasn't bad, it was horrible.) I think they just rush it through and then the reporters have to backtrack and correct the story. Better they should wait and get it right.

[peterh]

6. Would it be fair to assume….

That since Iraqi deaths aren’t counted, that there might have been just 7 non- indigenous deaths…:shrug:

[nicecakes]

7. No more fair than to assume all numbers are swags

I just want the facts. I can handle the facts.