UN Agrees to Stop Reporting Iraqi Casualties After Military Complains

Iraqi Army Accused Death Tolls of Hurting Morale

Following complaints from the Iraqi government, the United Nations has agreed to stop recording casualty figures for the ISIS war in Iraq, meaning that November’s report of 1,959 deaths among Iraqi security forces will be the last deaths you’ll be hearing about from them.

Iraqi Army officials claimed the figure was an “exaggeration,” though they’ve offered no death tolls of their own for the fighting. They further accused the UN report of hurting morale by making the death toll known.

The Iraqi Army command further claimed that the UN report was a deliberate attempt by the international body to “influence the course of Nineveh operations,” and that they were deliberately providing false reports in favor of ISIS.

The UN did note that they had requested casualty figures from the official Iraqi government sources, but never got any response, so they had to try to come up with their own figures. The UN says it will continue to report on civilian deaths in some parts of Iraq, but since they deliberately exclude the largest province, Anbar, this has always been of limited value anyhow.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.