"With regard to those originally reported as being wounded who later die from wounds received, for that information I would rely on press reports. . . ."

That's the point, Teribus. The press doesn't report this. We are not told what the real casualties are.

A couple of news reports I did see left me with indelible images of this war. While watching the news one evening (CBC, delivered by cable, not any of the American news services) they did a story on Iraqi civilian casualties. There was a brief film-clip of an Iraqi boy, about eight years old, laying in a hospital bed. The stumps where his arms had been were covered with bloody bandages, and the narrator mentioned that he had also lost a leg. His dark eyes were open, unblinking, and haunted. Sitting beside the bed was his mother, a fairly young woman wearing a burkha, but no veil. As she gazed off into space, her eyes bore the same haunted look. It was easy to assume that they both might have been wondering about how the boy was going to live for the rest of his life with only one leg and no arms. And wondering "Why?" The boy, and a couple of his friends, had been kicking a soccer ball around in a school yard on what seemed like a fairly calm afternoon, when a "smart bomb" exploded a few yards away from them. In the school yard. He was the lucky one. His friends had been killed.

On another news report, again not coming from a U. S. news service, a brief film clip showed a bridge American troops had just captured. In the background there were three bodies. I couldn't tell whether they were American or Iraqi, but from the gear they were wearing (camouflage, the helmets), it looked like they were American. One lay on his back with his arms and legs splayed out and bent in unnatural ways. Another looked like he was at attention; his legs straight were straight and his arms were at his sides, but his head was turned to one side. He was laying on his stomach. The third was further off in the distance and a bit off-camera. They looked like rag dolls that some petulant child had tossed there.

These were a couple of brief peeks at what really happens during a war. But these stories were broadcast while the major portion of the fighting was going on. The CBC doesn't show anything like this anymore, and the U. S. news services never showed anything like this at all. Except, of course, for Saddam's two sons. But in the meantime, the beat goes one. Every day or two:— Humvee attacked with rocket propelled grenades, two dead, three "injured." Troops guarding building attacked with automatic weapons fire, one dead, six "injured." And so one. For how long, one wonders?

Contemplated the kind of "injuries" an exploding rocket propelled grenade might inflict.

Don Firth