UPDATE: Many Challenge 'Wash Post' Claims on Death Toll in Iraq

By: Greg Mitchell Sectarian violence that followed last week's bombing of a Shiite shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis in the past few days, many times the figure previously reported by the U.S. media and the military, The Washington Post reported early Tuesday.

Later, however, Iraq Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called such high death totals "inaccurate and exaggerated," without mentioning the Post.

In comparison, The New York Times reported Monday that the recent violence "brought the country to the brink of civil war and left at least 200 dead." Others had produced similar figures.

On Tuesday, the Times increased that number to "379 dead and 458 wounded, the nation's Council of Ministers said today. At least 246 people in Baghdad alone were killed, the top two city morgue officials said."

It's unclear why these numbers remain so much below those cited by The Washington Post.

The Associated Press carried this on Tuesday: "The Post cited figures from the Baghdad central morgue, but an official there told The Associated Press that as of Sunday night they had received only 249 bodies tied to the violence. The Post figure appeared high based on police and hospital reports from the major population centers at the time of the attacks."

The Los Angeles Times, after noting the different figures today, added another, from Haidar Safar, a Ministry of Health official in charge of compiling data from hospitals and morgues across the country. He said 519 Iraqis have died from violence across the country since the blast occurred.

A Knight Ridder report from Baghdad late Tuesday stated that an American military official in Baghdad said U.S.-led coalition forces had been able to confirm only 220 such deaths since last Wednesday?s bombing.

It added that morgue officials said that the Post's 1300 figure "was nowhere close to what they'd seen. Many others, including Shiite and Sunni politicians alike, said they hadn't heard of anything approaching that number."

Maj. Gen. Ali Ghalib, the deputy of police affairs for the Interior Ministry, said "that number is very, very, very exaggerated," according to Knight Ridder. Saleh al Mutlak, a top Sunni politician, agreed, as did officials at the Iraqi Islamic Party, a group that?s been aggressive about documenting the murders of Sunnis.

"The head of the statistics bureau in the Interior Ministry, an Iraqi general who didn?t want his name used, said the national figures were between 350 and 400," Knight Ridder said.

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Jonathan Finer, a Post reporter in Baghdad, said the 1300 figure was determined at the morgue by another reporter. The two bylines on the Post's piece are longtime Iraq correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti. But it also lists as contributors special correspondents K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf, staff writer Nelson Hernandez "and other Washington Post staff."

Finer said dozens more had been killed today. He explained that other officials had independently confirmed a total dead figure of more than 1,000. The Post has said that death counts are often slow in reaching central police headquarters in Baghdad.

"Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- sprawled, blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads," the Post had reported earlier Tuesday. "Many of the bodies had their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"By Monday, violence between Sunnis and Shiites appeared to have eased. As Iraqi security forces patrolled, American troops offered measured support, in hopes of allowing the Iraqis to take charge and prevent further carnage.

"But at the morgue, where the floor was crusted with dried blood, the evidence of the damage already done was clear. Iraqis arrived throughout the day, seeking family members and neighbors among the contorted bodies."

Morgue officials said they had logged more than 1,300 dead since Wednesday. The Statistics Department of the Iraqi police put the nationwide toll at 1,020, at least. The majority of the dead had been killed after being taken away by armed men, police said.

The disclosure of the death tolls, the Post noted, "followed accusations by the U.S. military and later Iraqi officials that the news media had exaggerated the violence between Shiites and Sunnis over the past few days....

"In two hours at the morgue on Monday, families brought in two more victims of the violence to receive death certificates. Other families carried away 10 other dead. Most of the victims were Sunni.

"At the blue steel doors of the morgue, dozens of more bloody bodies could be seen on the floor or on gurneys. Two hundred still were unidentified and unclaimed, morgue workers said.

"Claiming the dead has become automated. Morgue workers directed families to a barred window in the narrow courtyard outside the main entrance. A computer screen angled to face the window flashed the contorted, staring faces of the dead: men shot in the mouth, men shot in the head, men covered with blood, men with bindings twisted around their necks."

Meanwhile, the well-known Iraqi blogger known as Riverbend, who writes the Baghdad Burning blog, observed in a new posting on Monday:

"The Iraqi government is pretending dismay, but it's doing nothing to curb the violence and the bloodshed beyond a curfew. And where are the Americans in all of this? They are sitting back and letting things happen--sometimes flying a helicopter here or there--but generally not getting involved.

"I?m reading, and hearing, about the possibility of civil war. The possibility. Yet I?m sitting here wondering if this is actually what civil war is like. Has it become a reality? Will we look back at this in one year, two years? ten? and say, 'It began in February 2006'? It is like a nightmare in that you don?t realise it?s a nightmare while having it--only later, after waking up with your heart throbbing, and your eyes searching the dark for a pinpoint of light, do you realize it was a nightmare?."