5,500 dead in Baghdad during occupation

So, the AP has done a survey and found that the violent death rate has risen sharply in Baghdad since the occupation began.

Here's the real nugget of fun:

That doesn't mean Iraq is a more dangerous place than during Saddam Hussein's regime. At least 300,000 people were murdered by security forces and buried in mass graves during the dictator's 23-year rule, U.S. officials say, and human rights workers put the number closer to 500,000.

"We cannot compare the situation now with how it was before," Nouri Jaber al-Nouri, inspector general of the Interior Ministry, said recently. "Iraqis used to fear everything. ... But now, despite all that is happening, we feel safe."

Still, the morgue figures, which exclude trauma deaths from accidents like car wrecks and falls, highlight the insecurity Iraqis feel from the high level of criminal and political violence, and underline the challenges that coalition and Iraqi forces face in trying to bring peace.

So we have, in successive sentences, an assertion that Iraqis feel safe and they feel insecure. I can't imagine how there could be complex feelings about an evil dictator being replaced by a repressive military and US-picked "Council".

More gems:

U.S. forces have records for the numbers of claims for compensation from Iraqis for personal injury, deaths of family members, or for property damage caused by U.S. military action in "non-combat" situations. Some $3 million has been paid to about 5,000 claimants, American officials said last month. About 8,000 claims had been rejected and 3,000 were pending, they said.

Now, granted, they apparently can't say how many claims are for deaths, and that one incident can result in multiple claims (doesn't this seem self-evident? Perhaps I'm missing something)

In trying to downplay this, the AP assures us that the numbers don't compete with Saddam's record, in which he killed between 300,000 and 500,000 in 23 years. This comes to something like 13,000 to 22,000 killed per year.

Since the 5,500 number A: only comes from Baghdad, B: only includes those people brought to the morgue - insurgents are rarely taken to the morgue, as are victims of terrorist bombings, it can be extrapolated that there are many uncounted dead throughout the entire country. How many? Who knows?

The bottom line is, once again, this administration is reduced to proving our goodness by saying we're not as bad as the last guy.