The Story Behind Iraq Casualty Count

"Michael White, a data analyst in Atlanta, found himself observing something interesting when the Iraq war broke out -- the numbers just didn't add up. He first noticed this in May 2003 shortly after President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech.

"I began watching reporting from Iraq, and I didn't hear as much about casualties as I had in prior months. I began to think things were underplayed, and I thought that things were just starting, and so I began to keep track of what was going on," he said.

His hunches proved correct and with careful investigation, he observed that the casualty (dead and wounded) counts were definitely underreported. As he began to comb newspapers, official counts, Web sites and other media, he began to observe oddities. "One day the number would be 125, but that was the same as it was two days ago, and since then, I read about two more soldiers killed."

So began the birth of the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that he runs that tallies the casualties in Iraq -- and does so in an extremely analytical way. "
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