Around 70 US led coalition troops and 700 Iraqi insurgents have been killed in fighting across Iraq since April 1st, but there is no authoritative figure on Iraqi civilian deaths, US Brigadier Gen Mark Kimmitt said today.
Gen Kimmitt's comments were the first full casualty statistics released by the military since a bloody uprising by a radical Shiite militia started April 4th and US forces began their siege against Sunni insurgents in Fallujah a day later.
"The coalition casualties since April 1st run about 70 personnel. ... The casualty figures we have received from the enemy are somewhere about 10 times that amount, what we've inflicted on the enemy," Gen Kimmitt told a Baghdad press conference.
"In terms of civilian casualties, there is no reliable, authoritative figure out there. We would ask the Ministry of Health, once Iraqi control ... is allowed back in Fallujah, they can get a fair, honest and credible figure and not one that is somehow filtered through some of the local propaganda machines," he said.