Panama’s Civilian Toll Put Too Low, Investigators Say : Invasion: Doctor group estimates 302 died, not 202. Military casualties may have been vastly overestimated.

A team of American doctors have concluded that at least 302 Panamanian civilians were apparently killed in the U.S invasion of Panama--far more than the Pentagon has estimated--and that Panamanian military casualties may have been vastly overestimated.

The findings, issued Wednesday in a report by the independent Physicians for Human Rights, suggest that the Dec. 20 invasion inflicted a far greater share of suffering on noncombatants than U.S. officials had estimated.

The doctors said they have received reliable reports of more than 100 civilian deaths that appeared not to have been included in the announced U.S. total of 202. At the same time, they disclosed that officials have been able to confirm only 50 of the 314 military deaths previously announced.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the findings, but an official said that the U.S. Southern Command in Panama had already concluded that its early estimates of Panamanian military deaths were probably too high.

If the new medical survey has uncovered a more accurate total, a State Department official said, “we’re not going to quibble.” The official called the earlier U.S. account a “good-faith effort.”

In another finding, the team of doctors concluded that the number of Panamanians injured during the invasion exceeded the official U.S. estimate.

While the United States put the figure at 1,508, the physicians’ team reported that at least 3,000 Panamanians sought hospital care for injuries sustained during the first week after the invasion.

The indication that civilian deaths may greatly have exceeded those among the military cast new doubt on the Bush Administration contention that the victory for democracy in Panama was won at minimal cost to the nation’s population.

Twenty-three American soldiers died in the invasion and 324 were wounded.

The investigative team concluded that the primary cause of death among civilians was “the official U.S. policy of using overwhelming firepower in residential areas to protect American lives,” said Ralph Wise, a Harvard Medical School professor who was part of the group.

The respected physician group, which specializes in assessing the medical consequences of armed conflict, said it found no indication that the United States sought to obscure the true casualty figures.

It also said it found no evidence that the Panamanian death toll numbered in the thousands, as claimed by some private citizens in the wake of the invasion.

The doctors’ report suggested that official estimates were flawed because U.S. officials used unconfirmed battlefield observations to estimate military casualties and relied on surveys of morgues and hospitals to count civilian dead.

The physician team said interviews with church and hospital officials produced extensive evidence of civilian deaths not included on the lists assembled by facilities.

It noted further that the vast majority of the 314 “enemy kills” claimed by the United States remains unsupported by any conclusive evidence. Only 50 of those casualties have been positively identified by the Panamanian government as members of the Panama Defense Forces, the report said.

The physician group said it was likely that some of those listed as civilian casualties may in fact have been military personnel in civilian clothing--a finding that could add to the total of military dead. But it asserted that the actual Panamanian military death toll nevertheless appears to have been far less than claimed by the United States.

U.S. officials in Panama have long acknowledged privately that the official U.S. estimate of 314 Panamanian military dead appeared excessive, saying it had been based on exaggerated “battlefield extrapolations.”

But the U.S. Southern Command has never revised its assessment, with investigators indicating they want to be sure of their findings before releasing a lower figure.

The separate finding that 202 civilians died as a result of the invasion was endorsed both by the United States and the new government of Panama.

The team of American doctors, however, said that estimate had ignored a Panamanian Red Cross report that there had been 62 non-military deaths in the city of Colon--38 more than the official count.

They said other “reliable reports” from church leaders, hospital officials and family members make clear that at least 60 civilians killed in Panama City during the invasion and its aftermath were not included on the official list.

The report was also critical of U.S. efforts to relieve suffering among those made homeless by the invasion, saying that relief efforts have been “inadequate to meet the basic needs of many civilians.”

It reported that the United States has taken full responsibility for the support of fewer than 3,000 of 18,000 displaced persons; many of the remainder lack adequate food and shelter, it stated.

A State Department official noted, however, that many of those civilians chose to live with relatives rather than move into U.S.-operated refugee centers.

“It’s not that we wouldn’t help these people,” the official said. “It’s that they didn’t ask us to.”