US claims it did utmost to protect innocent life

THE US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein may have killed about 2,000 Iraqi civilians. In Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Gulf War, as many as 100,000 noncombatants perished.

“I don’t think there has been a war where one side has gone to such painstaking lengths to protect innocent life,” said Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Iraqbodycount.net estimates civilian casualties at between 1,930 and 2,377. The Web site is run by researchers including University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold, author of a 2001 study on the human cost of the US campaign in Afghanistan, and compiles data from news organisations including Fox News, the BBC and Al Jazeera, and by aid groups including the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch.