Dead civilians, bad news

The US military is now apparently keeping count of how many civilians it kills in Iraq. The reason is not that killing civilians is itself intrinsically a bad thing, but that dead civilians are a negative instrumentality regarding how safe troops are in Iraq. See, after several years of saying that they "don't do" records of civilian deaths, they've found that killing civilians makes for unhappy live civilians who then make for a more unruly Iraq. So, let's count.

The death of civilians at the hands of U.S. troops has fueled the insurgency in Iraq, according to a top-level U.S. military commander, who said U.S. officials began keeping records of these deaths last summer.

Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who as head of the Multinational Corps Iraq is the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said the number of civilian dead and wounded is an important measurement of how effectively U.S. forces are interacting with the Iraqi people.

"We have people who were on the fence or supported us who in the last two years or three years have in fact decided to strike out against us. And you have to ask: Why is that? And I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy," Chiarelli told Knight Ridder.

Chiarelli said he reviews the figures daily. If fewer civilians are killed, "I think that will make our soldiers safer," Chiarelli said.