The battle of body counts continues

Point:

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN, September 30) - A series of car bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday killed 34 children at a ceremony where candy was being given away, the Iraqi Ministry of Health said.

Seven adults also died in the attacks and 153 people were wounded, the health ministry and hospital officials said. ...

In the first of the Baghdad car bombings, a suicide attack hit a compound housing a police station in the Abu Ghraib neighborhood in western Baghdad, Iraqi police officials said.

The dead included a Task Force Baghdad soldier and two Iraqi police officers, Iraqi and U.S. officials said. ... Three other soldiers were wounded, the U.S. military said. The Ministry of Health said 60 more people were wounded.

Later, car bombs struck other western Baghdad targets in the Hay al-Amil area, causing 41 deaths, the Health Ministry said. ...

An attack Thursday on the Tal Afar police chief's convoy killed four Iraqi civilians and wounded seven others - five civilians and two police officers, according to a Task Force Olympia officer.

Initial reports received by Task Force Olympia that were passed on by the Iraqi police say that it was a car bomb.

Totals: 86 civilians killed including at least 34 children, 218 wounded; 3 military killed, 5 wounded. (Iraqi police are included in the "military" category.)

Counterpoint:

Samarra, Iraq (AP, October 2) - U.S. and Iraqi forces battled pockets of resistance in Samarra on Saturday, shaking the city with sporadic gunfire as U.S. and Iraqi commanders claimed success in their two-day-old offensive to regain control of the Sunni insurgent stronghold.

The U.S. commander whose troops spearheaded the attack said 125 insurgents were killed and 88 captured in fighting since Friday in what appeared to be the first major push to wrest a string of cities from guerrillas' hands before elections in January. ...

Many bodies were strewn in the street but could not be collected for fear of the [US] snipers, while others were buried in people's gardens, residents said. ...

At Samarra General Hospital, Dr. Khalid Ahmed said at least 80 bodies and more than 100 wounded were brought to the facility, but it was not immediately clear how many were insurgents.

AP Television News reported that some residents could not take their wounded for treatment because of gunfire from American troops, who along with Iraqi forces were arresting any persons above the age of 15 being taken to at least one hospital.

"Dead bodies and injured people are everywhere in the city and when we tried to evacuate them, the Americans fired at us," one ambulance driver told APTN. "Later on they told us than we can evacuate only injured women and children and we are not allowed to pick up injured men." ...

Late Friday, the military struck a suspected al-Zarqawi safehouse in Fallujah. Two houses were flattened in the strike, and an Associated Press photographer saw a number of bodies, including those of women and children being pulled from the rubble. Dr. Suheib Ahmed at the city hospital said seven Iraqis were killed and 13 wounded in Friday's strike, while the AP photographer saw five bodies and 11 wounded.

Totals: Minimum 85 dead, including some children, and 111 wounded - of an unknown mix of "insurgent" and civilian; many bodies still "strewn in the streets" of Samarra and wounded unable to get to hospitals because of US snipers.

I've asked this before but it bears repeating, I think: At what point can people no longer insist that it would be worse if we left? At what point is even the most strident defender of the faith going to be forced to admit that it is not Iraqis were are defending but only our nationalistic, jingoistic "can't look weak, must show resolve" ego?