Credit: FreedomHouse / Foter / CC BYWhen Secretary of State John
Kerry picked up his mallets to beat the drums of war he told us all
that the Syrian government had killed nearly 1,500 people in a
chemical attack in August, more than 400 of which were
children.

But is it true? The Los Angeles Times went hunting and
discovered the United States is
nearly alone in thinking the numbers are that large:

Britain and France have cited far lower numbers of confirmed
deaths, raising questions about the intelligence the White House is
using to make its case to launch missile strikes against Syria.

U.S. officials say they can’t disclose how they derived their
figure without compromising intelligence, but they say it is based
on a variety of sources and they stand by it.

British intelligence organizations said last week that they
believed at least 350 people had been killed. French intelligence
said Monday that it had confirmed at least 281 deaths through
open-source videos, although its experts had created models that
were consistent with as many as 1,500 deaths.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, generally regarded as
one of the most reliable sources of information on casualty figures
in Syria, says it has confirmed 502 deaths, including 80 children
and 137 women. Rami Abdul-Rahman, a Syrian expatriate who runs the
organization from his home in Britain, said he was shocked by the
White House’s count.

“I don’t know where this number came from,” Abdul-Rahman said in
a phone interview.

Abdul-Rahman theorized the United States got these numbers from
opposition groups within Syria who exaggerate the numbers in the
hopes of getting us involved in the war. Anonymous officials
defended the estimate and say it may actually be even higher.

Read the Times story
here, and kudos to Ken Dilanian and Shashank Bengali for
actually investigating the numbers.