There have been several efforts to count the war’s toll on civilians, yielding reports ranging from 24,000 to 128,000 from last fall through last month. Compounding the complexity, all of these numbers were collected differently and count different things, so they aren’t directly comparable. For example, the widely cited number last month of about 25,000 counts only violent deaths that have been reported to the media. Meanwhile, a study conducted last fall that found 100,000 deaths arrived at that figure by calculating ‘excess’ deaths — all deaths, including those from illness and accidents, were included, but deaths from a comparable prewar period were subtracted out.

The uncertain and inconsistent numbers help explain why the civilian death toll — caused by criminals, terrorists, insurgents and soldiers from all sides — hasn’t been given much attention in major U.S. media, even as many newspapers report every death of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and, last December, headlined incomplete tsunami death-toll numbers for weeks.” (WSJ Online)