25,000 Iraqi civilians have apparently been killed since the March 2003 US led invasion. I don't know much about the group that conducted the study or what their methodology was (surely there are times when separating non-uniformed combatants from civilians is impossible), but I think absent any other reasonable attempts at counting civilian fatalities these numbers should be accepted.
First of all, I have to admit the number is smaller than I would have imagined. Second, 25,000 is still a pretty damn big number of people killed.
Back in late 2002/early 2003 when I was weighing the pluses and minuses of this war I knew there would be civilians killed. I never, however, tried to put a number on it. How could I when I didn't know: the regime would just vanish overnight, that there was no real government in exile waiting to take over, that the Administration had no good plan to run and hand over Iraq or that it would take so long for an Iraqi security force to come into being?
I'm convinced that the US has waged this campaign with as much care and concern for civilians as has ever been managed in a major war. That ten thousand civilians have been killed by American bombs and guns is still a tragedy – both for the families of those killed and those in the military who have to live with causing accidental deaths among the innocents.
In 2002/2003 I believed that if the US opted not to invade that (a) Saddam's regime would continue until his death, (b) that one of his maniacal sons would take over and (c) when the regime eventually fell it would be in a Yugoslavia type blood-bath. That rationale convinced me that from the perspective of the average Iraqi, the prospect of years more of Saddam followed by a civil war was less preferable than the US invasion and occupation.
So far, I think that still holds, but if the civil war comes anyway, then the upside of the US invasion is much reduced. Stabilizing Iraq must remain priority number 1. Leaving a stable, free and prospering Iraq will be the greatest achievement for the Iraqi people and for the War on Terror, but we are still a long, long way from that goal.
