Significantly less -- even the highest estimates on the invasion phase (not just the shock and awe portion) where at 5600, and of course, the US government claims an order of magnitude less than the 5600 number.

Shock and Awe was about display of power and infrastructure destruction... now how many died due to lack of power, water, and various types of infrastructure is an open question, and those deaths probably went on long after the "invasion phrase"

    Significantly less -- even the highest estimates on
    the invasion phase (not just the shock and awe portion)
    where at 5600

Not according to anything I've read.

Franks reportedly estimated soon after the invasion that there had been 30,000 Iraqi casualties as of April 9, 2003.

"Our analysis of the evidence leads to the conclusion that between 10,800 and 15,100 Iraqis were killed in the war. Of these, between 3,200 and 4,300 were noncombatants – that is: civilians who did not take up arms."

The study author Carl Conetta reported: "All told, more than 40,000 Iraqis were killed or injured,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraq...

You seem to not understand the context I was replying too, nor what I said.

> 1,700 air sorties and over 500 cruise missiles impacting and broadcast live to your living room. I wonder what the death toll from that night was.. 10,000? More?

This was the initial comment I was replying to, about the shock and awe campaign (read: Rapid Dominance). Since finding numbers for JUST the shock and awe is virtually impossible (since it was only about 48 hours), I expanded the time period to the entire "invasion phase", which was the initial military incursion period, not the entirety of the war. The "invasion phase" ends when you got your troops in country and footholds established.

This was all to correct that idea that 10,000 or more people died in two days (March 19th - March 21st, 2003). Even according the IBC (the most inflated numbers I could find) the end of shock and awe period numbers where at a maximum 1,174

April 2003 Min: 996 Max: 1,174 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count

This is a golden opportunity to see cultural differences in the Western World. I remember distinctly that, at the height of the first Gulf War, a large communal childrens party that I (then a child) wanted to go to was cancelled, because it would be inappropriate to have a party while so many people are dying in the war.

Mind you, this was in Germany, which was involved only quite indirectly, with no troops participating in the fighting.