Russia Military Experts: U.S. and British Officials Play down Death Toll in Iraq - 28 March, 2003

Russian military experts believe that the official statistics on American and British casualties in Iraq is understated.

"Only losses from friendly fire" must have been much more than announced, Colonel-General Valery Mironov, former defence minister and a participant in hostilities in Afghanistan, told a Friday RIA Novosti press conference.

"The strategic influence sector of the Pentagon often presents unilateral information and even brazens misinformation to the public", stressed the general.

In his opinion, "the propaganda component is becoming for the United States and its allies a military means of attaining their goals".

Later on, "the allies' propaganda machine may even form an opinion that the Iraq war is over and the enemy has been defeated", muses General Mironov. "By doing so, they will not cope with all problems and peace will not come to the Iraqi soil very soon", he added.