Bush gives his first estimate of death toll since invasion

Washington - George Bush said yesterday that 30,000 Iraqis had died in the 1,000 days since the invasion in his first public acknowledgement of the war's total death toll. The president gave the estimate in answer to a question after a speech in Philadelphia to hail Iraq's political progress as early voting began for this week's election.

A Pentagon document in October estimated that Iraqis had been killed or wounded at the rate of about 50 a day over the past year, but this is the first time the administration has publicly addressed the Iraqi toll. Mr Bush said "30,000 have died more or less" in the invasion and ensuing violence, together with 2,140 U.S. soldiers.

His estimate appeared to include both Iraqi civilians and security forces. An independent watchdog group, Iraq Body Count, estimates that up to 30,892 Iraqi civilians have died. A Lancet article last year put the total death toll from the general "climate of violence" at 100,000.

Nine Iraqis were killed by insurgent attacks on a day that Iraqi soldiers, hospital patients and prisoners cast their ballots ahead of Thursday's election. As voting began, a poll - conducted by Oxford Research International for the BBC and other media organisations - showed remarkable resilience among ordinary Iraqis. Nearly 71% of those questioned described their lives now as quite good or very good. Just over half said life was better than before the war, and 64% expected further improvements in the coming year.

The generally buoyant mood provided a boost for Mr Bush, who compared Iraq's politicians to America's founding fathers. "It's a remarkable transformation for a country that has virtually no experience with democracy and which is struggling to overcome the legacy of one of the worst tyrannies the world has known," he said.

In the poll Baghdad, Shia and Kurdish areas were more upbeat than the Sunni centre. That divide seemed likely to deepen after the discovery of a secret prison in Baghdad run by the Iraqi interior ministry, which uses forces drawn heavily from Shia militias. More than 600 prisoners were found in cramped cells and 13 needed hospitalisation. It was the second such centre found by U.S. forces in Baghdad in a month. Most prisoners in the first jail were Sunni and some had been tortured. Mr Bush called yesterday for those responsible to be "called to account".

The new poll showed widespread distrust of the occupation forces in Iraq, and a slim majority said the March 2003 invasion was wrong but only a quarter wanted an immediate troop withdrawal. Most wanted the departure of U.S. and British soldiers only after certain milestones had been reached: either the restoration of security, the establishment of a new Iraqi government after Thursday's elections, or the development of Iraqi security forces capable of operating on their own. -- Guardian News

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