Thousands of Americans, Iraqis Injured in the War

Jan. 30, 2006 — -- As the families of American men and women serving overseas in Iraq pray for the safe return of their loved ones, there's much talk about the number of U.S. soldiers and civilians killed there.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 2,245 soldiers have been killed in Iraq, as of Jan. 30, 2006.

But the injuries of Americans and Iraqi casualties tend to get less coverage. More than 16,500 Americans have been wounded, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, which updates its Web site regularly.

And it's been difficult to get an accurate count of Iraqi casualties.

Numbers ranging from more than 20,000 to more than 100,000 have been printed in magazines, quoted on television, and spread over the Internet.

In December, President Bush was quoted as saying there had been about 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq.

"I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," Bush said while addressing the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia late last year.

But that number may be low as a study published in October 2004 concluded that there had been roughly 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since the start of the war. The study was conducted by Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, Iraq.

But even those who had conducted the study admitted that the numbers needed to be independently verified.