Networks ignored humanitarian worker Ruzicka's claims that Pentagon conceals civilian casualty figures

News reports indicate that the Pentagon routinely claims it does not track civilian casualties for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "the United States adamantly refuses to estimate the number of people it kills in combat" [5/3/03]. The Washington Post reported that "Pentagon officials say they do not keep tallies of civilian casualties" [10/29/04]. Similarly, retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, declared in March 2002: "We don't do body counts."
Yet other news reports suggest that the Pentagon does in fact track civilian casualties, a discrepancy that ABC and other media outlets failed to note in their coverage of Ruzicka's death.
Ruzicka is not the only researcher to question the Pentagon about civilian casualty figures: [more]