It's not always best to use official figures, especially when there's a reason to fudge them a little bit. In the wikipedia article on the 2014 war in Gaza, there are two different estimates of the number of civilian dead: "The Gaza Health Ministry, UN and some human rights groups reported that 69–75% of the Palestinian casualties were civilians; Israeli officials estimated that around 50% of those killed were civilians." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict#Palestinian) I would say that the higher estimate is the correct one - it's independently investigated and confirmed on the ground. The other one seems to be compiled without being on the ground and with secret sources that cannot be verified.
It's the same thing with the civilian casualties from US drone strikes. The HuffPo article you refer to is describing the findings in a report from the Intercept (https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/) which implies a huge numbers of civilian casualties from US drone strikes. The implied figure is at least partially refuted by other groups that put the total number of civilian casualties between 200-800. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/world/middleeast/drone-strike-statistics-answer-few-questions-and-raise-many.html?_r=0) It's worth mentioning that the official number from the same article is between between 64 and 116 civilians (or non-combatants) which is an absurdly low figure. I'll go with the 200-800 figure, which seems reasonable - 90% seems a bit too high and unconfirmed.
The Iraq war body count is a tricky one - there's barely any consensus on anything about how many people have died in the Iraq war since 2003. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War) It's certain though that a lot of people have died, and that it can be blamed on an unecessary US-led invasion. However, there are few indications that war crimes have been committed by US military forces (private military companies excluded), but if it comes out that they've been using the same targeting practices as Israel, it would possibly constitute a war crime as well.
Interestingly, the alleged use of human shields has been investigated by HRW, and it found no evidence of Hamas using human shields, but there was plenty of evidence of the IDF using Palestinians as human shields. (https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/04/11/turning-blind-eye/impunity-laws-war-violations-during-gaza-war) I suppose you either use different sources or just hope that if you repeat an unfounded statement it will be seen as a fact.
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