http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=592328Because the coalition wants to play down the carnage. Especially when it comes to civilians
By Andrew Buncombe, Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker
12 December 2004
A deadly milestone was reached in Iraq last week, and hardly anyone noticed. Captain Mark Stubenhofer of the US army's 41st Infantry Regiment, killed in a firefight on a street in Baghdad on Tuesday, was the 1,000th American to die in combat since the country was invaded nearly 21 months ago - yet none of the reports of his death mentioned the fact.
The reason? Only one news agency spotted that the Pentagon's official tally of deaths in action had reached 999, and that its latest casualty announcement meant that the toll was now in four figures. And when Capt Stubenhofer's name was released later, after his family had been informed, no news organisation made the connection, not even The Washington Post, which carried a story because his home town - Springfield, Virginia - is in its circulation area.
The Post reported that Capt Stubenhofer, 30, had last spoken to his parents when he called from Iraq to tell them his wife had had their third child, a daughter. "He never got to see her, though. She'll only know him through us," his mother, Sallie Stubenhofer, told the newspaper. It was his second tour of duty in Iraq; during his first he was awarded the Bronze Star.
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