I was watching the CBS evening news with Dan Rather tonight, he was interviewing Colin Powell, and I was shocked to hear Rather assert that the death toll from this incident was 13,000.
I had heard rumors of this from a visitor from NYC, she said that the toll was hugely higher than the 6000+ they’ve been putting on the news, but she said they’ve begun suppressing the figures and that they’re running much higher than anyone has admitted publicly. But I dismissed this as unlikely since the 6k figure was so widely distributed. Now I’m not so sure. I presume that Rather was including the Pentagon numbers, but that couldn’t possibly double the WTC numbers.
So what’s the straight dope on the numbers? I haven’t found much of anything on the usual web news sources.
I watched the exact same interview. I am surprised you didn’t pick up on Dan’s clarification. He twice stated that the 13,000 figure was total casualties: 6,000+ dead, 7,000+ injured.
That just doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I cannot imagine any reason why “they” would want to admit 6500 casualties and not 13,000. There’s no obvious benefit.
And frankly, there’s no “they” that could cover it up anyway.
Ah, thanks for the explanation, including the wounded does make sense out of the figures. Sorry, I’m a bit deaf and didn’t hear any clarification. Didn’t help that someone was yapping in my good ear while I was trying to listen.
Part of the confusion has been caused by the media, who irresponsibly kept repeating “up to 800” people may be dead at the Pentagon, when the actual death toll I believe wss below 200 (still too high of course).
WAG: A number of the people working there, in jobs like sweeping floors and preparing food at the restaurants, were illegal immigrants (or “undocumented workers” if you like). There could be some fear among their family members, also in the US illegally, that even reporting them as missing would bring attention from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
I always thought that the official tolls were low. It was during business hours that those planes hit. From what we’ve heard, WAY more than 6300 worked in those buildings. But I can see how many people might not be reported missing right away. Suppose you have a single person whose nearest relations live a thousand miles away. Suppose further that this person is new in town and doesn’t have a lot of friends, except at work. If he goes missing, who’s going to notice that he’s missing except the office he works in? And if the office he works in has been blown up, what then?
I think only if someone could recover a building security log would we be able to determine who was on the premises when the Towers collapsed.
Thanks…my wife and I both missed this clarification, too. However, we were probably overtalking the TV as we reasoned this must be a estimated total figure.
Another point to remember is that the companies in the building have logs of who was in the office. These logs have been compared with missing person reports filed by the relatives. In some cases, companies on the upper floors requested that all employees who worked in the WTC call HQ to report their status. If there’s any discprenacy in the body count going forward, it’s likely to be very small.