Steve R wrote:

If you apply vested interest in governments when they make this kind of estimate, I presume you are also claiming the US government is exaggerating the people killed in New York this week. Knowing that that would be a stupid thing to do, may give you some idea of how I consider your comment above.

For the purposes of estimating casualties, I don't think the situations are comparable. The WTC and the various aircraft all had statistics available in advance concerning the number of people normally occupying them. The Pentagon would have been less chatty, but still able to give approximate figures. There have been other casualties, too - firemen, for example - but the figure will have been dominated by the number of workers in the WTC.

In contrast, how do you derive even vaguely accurate estimates of casualties from an incredibly long period of continuous carpet-bombing of a whole city, never mind the rest of Desert Storm?

In terms of inflating figures, I've no comment to make, being not suitably informed to judge.

steve