As the war in Iraq enters its second week, an unofficial project is underway to tally the number of Iraqi citizens killed in the conflict.
A University of New Hampshire professor is one of the people behind the so-called Iraq Body Count project.
NHPR correspondent Brian McWilliams reports.
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The U.S. government says it doesn't keep track of civilians killed by bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So Marc Herold, a professor of economics at UNH, has taken the task upon himself.
For the past 18 months, Herold has been combing through media reports on the war in Afghanistan.
He?s compiled one of the only estimates of civilian casualties.
According to his figures, THE FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN KILLED somewhere between 3,000 and 3,500 non-combatants.
Now, with the war against Iraq well underway, Herold HAS TAKEN ON a similar effort.
HE CALLS IT the Iraq Body Count.
Already, the project counts more than 220 civilian deaths.
THE latest ADDITIONS WERE THE 14 Baghdad residents killed Wednesday when a bomb hit a market there.
According to Herold, no calculation of the costs of war is complete without factoring in civilian deaths.
"I think it should be part of the discussion of war. Are the targets really being hit, or are innocents being killed? Because I think fundamentally if the American people see the blood and carnage of what happens, they say no." [:23]
The project's website, at iraqbodycount.net, keeps an updated record of civilian deaths.
The project also provides special banners that Internet users can install on their own web sites to display up-to-date body count statistics.
U.S. OFFICIALS SAY THE PENTAGON IS TAKING great pains to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq.
In a speech Wednesday, President Bush said the U.S. was hitting military targets with what he called "lethal precision."
But Herold says an over-confidence in the accuracy of smart bombs is dangerously leading the U.S. to fire into heavily populated areas.
As a result, Herold ARGUES HIS data suggest precision-guided munitions paradoxically result in more, rather than fewer, civilian casualties.
"Military and political elites are making decisions to bomb targets in what I call civilian-rich areas using very, very powerful bombs. To be entirely safe from that kind of bomb, you have to be 1,000 meters away. So when you drop these kinds of bombs in a neighborhood of a big city, you are going to kill a lot of people." [:30]
But some analysts argue with Herold's methodology.
They say compiling civilian war deaths from media reports is fraught with problems.
Iain Murray is a Virginia-based political commentator for United Press International.
"It's the accuracy that's the question. Accurate information should shape policy. Inaccurate information can have no good effect on policy. It can only send us in a direction which is wrong." [:12]
According to Murray, accurate civilian death counts can only be performed once the war is over, and cooler heads prevail.
OTHERS AGREE Herold's methodology may be not be perfect.
BUT THEY ARGUE, HEROLD?S DATA can provide valuable, real-time feedback on how a war is going.
Carl Connetta is co-director of the Massachusetts-based Project on Defense Alternatives.
"If there are very high civilian casualties in Iraq, it will come back to haunt us in attempts to stabilize the country. So I think it really does have a bearing on debates inside the administration and the armed forces about how to go and what's most important. And more information is better than no information." [:20]
UNH's MARC Herold says he doubts that Washington is paying much attention to the Iraq Body Count project.
But he hopes the information it generates will galvanize citizens.
"I don't think that a couple web sites out there, or even though my work has been cited all over the world, makes much difference. I think it really has to be something which communities and people express their concern. I think that's the way ultimately it's going to have an effect." [:29]
For NHPR NEWS, this is Brian McWilliams, in Durham.
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