Limbaugh attacked "American media" for tracking Iraq fatalities, but Pentagon does too

Reading from an Associated Press article on his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh attacked "the American media" for "keeping a tally" of U.S. fatalities in Iraq, calling such a practice "sick." But the Department of Defense publicly releases statistics on U.S. deaths in Iraq. These figures are updated regularly to reflect total deaths, non-hostile deaths, those killed in action (KIA), and those wounded in action (WIA).

From the August 3 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: "U.S. death toll in Iraq surpasses 1,800." How do we know? Because the American media's keeping a tally. Right here, I have it in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. Sameer Yacoub, the AP: "Seven U.S. Marines were killed in two separate attacks west of Baghdad, where American forces were trying to seal a major border infiltration route to foreign fighters. The deaths pushed the U.S. military death toll in Iraq past 1,800."

This is sick. People are keeping a body count on this. As we mentioned yesterday -- all right, a brief time out. We'll be back. We will continue.