US claims 77,000 Iraqis killed

IN the most extensive death tally of the Iraq war, the US military says nearly 77,000 Iraqi civilians and security officials were killed from early 2004 to mid-2008 — a toll that falls well below Iraqi government figures.

The military’s count, which spans the bloodiest chapter of Iraq’s sectarian warfare and the US troop surge to quell it, is short of the 85,694 figure released last year by the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry that covers early 2004 to October 31, 2008.

Casualty figures in the US-led war in Iraq have been hotly disputed because of the high political stakes.