Al-Arab Blog - مدونة العرب

Pentagon hiding reality of toll from war in Iraq: "senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tried asking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about U.S. troops who have been wounded in Iraq.
He wanted to know the number of battlefield casualties, how the Pentagon was defining 'wounded in action,' the procedure for releasing information on wounded and how many Americans had received the Purple Heart. Sen. Hagel told National Public Radio that it took six weeks to get a response. A letter from the Pentagon said: 'At this time, we were unfortunately lacking in information, and we didn't have the information that you requested.' Sen. Hagel found the non-answers 'astounding' and criticized a widening credibility gap between the government and the American people over a complete accounting of the war's toll."