Article Agrees with Bush about War

Ok, see if you read this the same way I am. In an article (well, a few weeks ago now) about a panic stampede in Iraq, the writers say "it was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion." Ok, 648 dead, 322 hurt, lot of people. Here is my question. Because they said since the war began, (I use the term war because this is a very biased AP writer), doesn't that imply that events happened before we went to war, when Saddam was in power, that killed more people? Could this be something, say, the purges of the people who disagreed with Saddam? (One of the 5 reasons we went to war that journalists somehow can't figure out that Bush said.) I always love when those who wish to tout an angle end up agreeing with the side they are arguing against.