American Forces Responsible for 532 of 18,610 Civilian Deaths in Iraq in 2007

Interviews, Other Data Lead to Tally of Grim Reality

The year 2007 was a year of opposites in Iraq. The beginning of the year was marked by bloodshed, and the end of the year was marked by relative calm. The beginning of the year saw an increase in American troops, while the end of the year will usher in a decrease in them. Where fears that the year's early sectarian in-fighting between Sunnis and Shi'ites, spurred on by the continued bombing of the Askariya Mosque, would blossom into a full-blown civil war, Sunnis have begun to reconcile themselves with their seeming mortal enemies, and instead turned their guns on a more common enemy in the al-Qaeda foreign fighters, taking on the name "Sunni Awakening Councils".

Many cannot decide whether 2007 should be called the worst year in Iraq - as the military casualties were among the highest - or one of the best years in Iraq, as in the second half of the year, casualties, death, and violence plummeted to early 2003 and 2004 levels. With the first half of the year shouldering the brunt of the "surge" portion of the Baghdad Security Plan, however, the year was forced to go through a grim black stage, followed by a peaceful, white stage.

According to the Associated Press, 18,610 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2007 - a number compiled in correlation with the Iraqi government using hospital and mortician reports. In 2006, among the worst years in Iraq both strategically and violently due to the largely "policing" role American forces were playing instead of the active, aggressive military role they played in 2003 and 2007, there were roughly 17,100 Iraqi civilian casualties - 256 of them caused by American forces.

The Web site Iraq Body Count lauds itself as among the most accurate reporting sites available for presenting the actual presentation of civilian casualties, putting the total at 80,000-87,000, falling far short of the claim by some anti-war critics that "600,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003.