Ambassador Gene Cretz’s estimate for a death toll in Libya today was 30,000 which, if I’m remembering correctly, is about as much as the US was willing to cop to for the entire Iraq War until the WikiLeaks documents showed that to be a deliberate (and dramatic) undercount.
The real story wasn’t so much the surprisingly high death count, however, but Cretz’s admission that the toll was likely inaccurate, and his subsequent admission that an accurate figure wasn’t possible “until we really get more hands-on experience on the ground.”
Note he didn’t say “if” US troops end up on the ground, he says “until,” suggesting it is carved in stone that it will happen at some future date. Something the administration has repeatedly been insisting won’t happen.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates even went so far as to rule this out “as long as I’m in this job,” an assurance that is far less meaningful with officials saying he will be gone by the end of June.
