That's an excellent question.
How about going back to the sources of the news stories, and see where the numbers are coming from?
Most are "police sources" or "security sources."
Are all the reports crap? Of course not. Many Iraqi civilians are obviously being killed, confirmed by multiple sources, photos, and first-hand reporting. But which sensationalist reports from Iraqi sources are crap? And which aren't?
There are a number of examples of an outrage being reported, and nothing being found when U.S. and Iraqi Army forces come to the scene. The "four burned mosques" that weren't burned are only the most recent of these.
And a major AP source of these sorts of reports seems, from what I've seen so far, not to even exist. Does that bother you at all?