U.N. raises tally of Iraqi civilians dead, says 1.6 million have fled

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqis are dying in record numbers and fleeing by the tens of thousands an anarchic nation where armed men rule the streets and there's little faith in government institutions, according to a United Nations report released Wednesday.

The 3,709 Iraqis killed in October constituted the highest monthly toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the report said. Hundreds of the bodies turned up bound and blindfolded, with signs of torture and execution-style killings.

For ordinary Iraqis, who struggle against a rising tide of sectarianism and an atmosphere of lawlessness, life is increasingly bleak, according to the report, prepared by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq.

Culling from figures kept by Iraq's Health Ministry, private hospitals and Baghdad's morgue, the report described a rapidly deteriorating society that has forced an estimated 1.6 million people to flee to neighboring countries since the war began in 2003.

Numbers vary widely

Tracking casualties in Iraq is an imprecise process that has yielded widely varying numbers and has become increasingly embarrassing for Iraqi leaders trying to show they are ready to take over the normal functions of government.

The British-based research group Iraq Body Count estimates 50,000 civilians have died since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Last month, a team of U.S. and Iraqi epidemiologists gave a more dire assessment, estimating 655,000 more people have died in the post-invasion period than would have had there not been a war.

The U.N. figure for the number of killings in October was more than three times the 1,216 tabulated by The Associated Press.

One segment of the Iraqi government dismissed the U.N. report, saying the United Nations gathered information from unreliable sources. It did not provide its own tally.

"Yes, we have casualties, but not that huge number of casualties," Health Minister Ali Hussein al-Shamari said on Iraqi television.

But Hassan al-Sneid, a legislator and close adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said government figures on civilian casualties are slightly lower than those compiled by the United Nations but didn't dispute the unraveling security conditions.

"We can say we've barely got security," al-Sneid said, adding that militias are not the only factor in the upsurge in violence.

"We have the weak security forces, lack of services, corruption, tribal revenge, terrorism and the speeches of fanatical clerics. They're all partners in deteriorating security, and that's besides the interference of neighboring countries."

Baghdad is "epicenter"

The capital, Baghdad, a religiously mixed city where one-third of Iraq's 26 million people live, saw the worst violence, though it's quickly spilling into outlying provinces.

"Baghdad is the epicenter, but the violent trend is spiking up throughout the country," said Said Arakat, spokesman for the U.N. mission in -

Iraq."And the sectarian division is getting much, much wider than a couple of months ago."

That division was evident in Wednesday's Parliament session, where Iraqi lawmakers traded thinly veiled sectarian jabs over recent security breaches that have left them vulnerable to attack.

Explosives in a decoy car in the convoy of Iraq's Sunni speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, partially detonated inside the heavily fortified government Green Zone on Tuesday.

The attack came as a startling revelation of insurgents' ability to infiltrate perhaps the best-guarded place in Iraq and led to accusations that rival factions were behind the apparent assassination attempt.

Sunni lawmaker Mithal al-Alusi told Parliament it was time to acknowledge that the infiltration of Sunni and Shiite armed groups came from within their own ranks and to stop blaming it on foreign fighters allied with al-Qaida.

Legislators on Wednesday debated heatedly whether to hire a Western security firm instead of relying largely on a mixed-sect, joint security committee to provide protection. No decision was made.

Iraqi police officials said at least 52 bodies were discovered throughout Baghdad on Wednesday. Among them was the body of Raad Jaafar Hamadi, a reporter for the state-run al Sabah newspaper, who was killed in a drive-by shooting. The death raised to at least 92 the number of journalists killed in Iraq since the war began.

In other developments:

U.S. military deaths: Three U.S. Marines were killed Wednesday fighting in Anbar province, the western Iraqi base of many Sunni-Arab insurgents, the military said today. A U.S. soldier died of noncombat injuries Tuesday and another was killed by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Marine sentenced: Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., 21, of Matlock, Mason County, was sentenced to 21 months in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to lesser charges in the killing of an unarmed Iraqi civilian whose body was left with an assault rifle and a shovel to make him look like an insurgent. Shumate Jr. entered his pleas to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice through his civilian attorney, Steve Immel, during court-martial proceedings at Camp Pendleton, Calif. In return for his guilty pleas, the government dismissed other charges against Shumate, including murder, kidnapping, assault and conspiracy. Shumate is the fourth squad member to accept a plea to lesser charges in exchange for his testimony.

Material from The Associated Press and The Washington Post

is included in this report.