Philadelphia: US President George W Bush said on Monday that about 30,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war in Iraq began.
"No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts," Bush said in a speech and question-and-answer session at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia, striking a more realistic tone than he has sometimes in the past.
In an interview with NBC's Nightly News program, Bush acknowledged the US mission in Iraq has not gone as well as originally planned, when senior Bush officials had predicted US troops would be welcomed as liberators.
"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome," Bush said.
In another acknowledgment of a mistaken prediction, Bush admitted that Iraqi oil revenues were "not as great as he thought they would be. Yet they are substantial."
Bush needs a relatively smooth showing during Thursday's election in Iraq to show as a sign of progress and to counter daily news of suicide bombings and US troop deaths more than 2,100 since the start of the war that have soured Americans on the war.
Bush predicted insurgent violence will not end with the election and said much work remains to make Iraq's fledging democracy inclusive to all.
"This week elections won't be perfect, and a successful vote is not the end of the process. Iraqis still have more difficult work ahead," he said, adding, "These enemies aren't going to give up because of a successful election."
Bush on Iraq war
Asked about the Iraqi death toll, Bush said about 30,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It was the first time Bush has publicly offered such an estimate. His aides quickly pointed out the President was not offering an official estimate.
"There is not an official US government estimate," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. He added that the 30,000 figure was based on "public estimates cited by media reports."
Ohio Democratic Republican Dennis Kucinich demanded the Bush administration release all information it has on the number of Iraqi civilian deaths.
"It is far past time for this sort of admission from this White House," he said.
Bush's figure for the death toll among Iraqis was in the range given by Iraq Body Count, a US-British nongovernmental group, which currently says between 27,383 and 30,892 civilians, rather than all Iraqi citizens, have been killed in Iraq since the invasion.
Its figures are based on media reports, which often fail to capture all deaths in the country. Other estimates, including one done by scientists and published in the medical journal Lancet, put the civilian death toll as high as 100,000.
Bush denounced the presence of prisons in Iraq "where mostly Sunni men were held, some of whom have appeared to have been beaten and tortured."
"Those who committed these crimes must be held to account," Bush said. #### {"dataSourceUrl":"//docs.google.com/spreadsheet/tq?key=0Aj5L7T5iH6XZdE5Wd3h5N2xKTkoxZVRuVEZ1bFFYeFE&transpose=1&headers=1&range=A29%3AB32&gid=0&pub=1","options":{"vAxes":[{"title":null,"minValue":null,"viewWindowMode":"pretty","viewWindow":{"min":null,"max":null},"maxValue":null},{"viewWindowMode":"pretty","viewWindow":{}}],"reverseCategories":false,"title":"","backgroundColor":"#FFFFFF","legend":"none","theme":"maximized","logScale":false,"reverseAxis":false,"hAxis":{"maxAlternations":1},"hasLabelsColumn":false,"isStacked":false,"width":550,"height":488},"state":{},"view":"{\"columns\":[0,1,2,3]}","chartType":"ColumnChart","chartName":"Chart 10"}
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