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Opinion polls in the United States and the United Kingdom have found that a majority of the public in both countries has a remarkably consistent belief that only about 10,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Estimates of deaths in Iraq actually range from 150,000 to 1.2 million. Part of the reason for the seriously misguided public perception may come from a serious belief in guided weapons, according to what the government tells people about "precision" bombing. But one must ask how so many people can be killed if these weapons are so "precise," for instance in one of "the most precise air campaigns in military history," as a Pentagon spokesman characterized the total destruction last year of Raqqa in Syria.
The dreadful paradox of "precision weapons" is that the more the media and the public are wrongly persuaded of the near-magical qualities of these weapons, the easier it is for U.S. military and civilian leaders to justify using them to destroy entire villages, towns and cities in country after country: Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq; Sangin and Musa Qala in Afghanistan; Sirte in Libya; Kobane and Raqqa in Syria.
Comment: As long as 'the myth' stays alive, countries will be buying bombs and the lucrative market for the MIC will remain in business, no matter the headcount - fudged or not.