Ask a simple question: Common Dreams relates this Q and A at a White House press briefing yesterday:

Russell Mokhiber: Scott, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health last month estimated that the war in Iraq has resulted in 100,000 Iraqi deaths. The administration has said in the past that it doesn’t do body counts, but do you consider 100,000 to be in the ballpark of number of Iraqis killed as a result of the war?

Scott McLellan: I don’t know of any specific estimates on the civilians. I know that the United States military goes out of its way to minimize the loss of civilian life. And what we are working to achieve in Iraq is an important cause that will make America more secure. And we are working side by side with the Iraqi people to move forward on free elections because a free Iraq will help transform a dangerous region of the world and make America more secure. And our men and women in the military are doing an outstanding job. They are serving and sacrificing in a very important cause.

Mokhiber: If I could follow up on that, does the President have an estimate before him on the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the war?

Scott McLellan: I’m not aware of a precise estimate, an estimate of that nature.

Live to vote another day: In a story where she quotes Marine Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl as telling the BBC, "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Fallujah," Naomi Klein sums up the situation in Falluja:

With all the millions spent on "democracy-building" and "civil society" in Iraq, it has come to this: If you can survive attack by the world's only superpower, you get to cast a ballot. Fallujans are going to vote, goddammit, even if they all have to die first.