Do you know the civilian death
toll in Iraq? If not, why not?
How many civilians have been killed by military conflict in Iraq
since the invasion? What proportion of those deaths resulted from
direct U.S. assaults on Iraqi cities and villages?
The most accurate recent estimate is that at least 100,000 Iraqi
civiliansthe majority of them women and childrenmet a violent
death during the 18 months after the invasion. Most were killed
by U.S. air strikesbombs dropped from jets, fired from helicopter
gunships, and delivered by rockets; fewer were killed by fire from
tanks, machine guns, and small arms. These people were not killed by
their fellow Iraqis on either side of the conflict; death rained
down upon them indiscriminately from the sky. As many of the dead
were children under 15 as were adult meneven if all adult men who
might conceivably have been combatants are excluded from the death
toll. The United States has dropped ten times as many bombs as the
resistance has set car bombs in the street, but one would never know
this from listening to the news media. The deliberate destruction of
Fallujah was the worst single case of annihilation; but other
villages and neighborhoods have met similar fates without attracting
such media attention.
Why dont we know these things?
Dr. Les Roberts, coauthor of the major study of civilian deaths in
Iraq since the invasion published in Lancet (364: 185764) on
29 October 2004, spoke briefly at a regular meeting of Newton
Dialogues on Peace and War on 13 March 2005. The study, conducted
through the Center for Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at the
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Department of
Community Medicine at Al Mustansiriyan University in Baghdad, used
standard survey techniques for collecting mortality data in the
absence of accurate censuses and vital statistics. By randomly
selecting a clustered, representative sample of households across
Iraq and interviewing family members, doctors compiled information
on births and deaths, as well as arrivals and departures, before and
after the invasion. They inquired carefully into the causes of
deaths and cross checked the data with other sources. The study was
designed to ensure that any possible biases resulting from missing
data underestimated deaths, especially violent ones. The results,
which showed a more than a doubling of the death rate among
civilians, were shocking to anyone who has not seen war close at
handespecially a war conducted primarily by bombing densely
populated areas.
The Geneva Conventions (IV, Art. 12) require that civilians in
areas under military occupation shall be at all times humanely
treated, and shall be protected especially against acts of
violence. The U.S. has violated this internationally accepted
standard and committed war crimes. The U.S.-led occupation forces
have made little effort even to monitor the effects of its military
actions on civilians. We dont do body counts, said General Tommy
Franks.
We all read the number of U.S. service men and women killed and
injured in Iraq every day. We do not read about the number of Iraqis
who are killed, because no one here counts them. But all these lives
count. American service men and women will be forever changed by
knowing that they were responsible for the deaths of innocent
civilians while following the accepted rules of engagement in
occupied Iraq. According to an article on mental health problems
among veterans by C.W. Hoge and others published in the New England
Journal of Medicine (351:1322) on 1 July 2004, the
intensity of conflict in Iraq is a major cause of post traumatic
stress disorder. (For more on the high prevalence of PTSD among Iraq war veterans,
see Bernard Lown, M.D., Militarism in America, in Alternative
Views 2:3, 20 October 2004, available at
http://www.alternative-views.org.)
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Of those veterans interviewed
for the study, 12% of Army soldiers and 24% of the Marines said that
they had personally been involved in the killing of at least one
noncombatant during their tour of duty. Roberts explained that Iraqi
families whose loved onesparticularly childrenare killed by direct
gunfire sometimes receive personal apologies from the remorseful
U.S. soldiers who were responsible, provided that the dead and their
kin can be identified. Sometimes whole households and families are
obliterated.
So, when a team of physicians
interviewed Iraqis and counted their dead, why didnt we hear about
it? Why arent Americans, whose government and military forces are
responsible for this continuing violation of international law, as
aware of the civilian death toll as Europeans? The Lancet
article appeared just five days before the U.S. presidential
election. Not only was it buried by last minute campaigning, but
Bushs spin doctors, such as Anthony Cordesman (now at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies in D.C. and a frequent
commentator on ABC news), used its careful statements about
methodology to try to undermine its conclusions. Even Slate
Magazines military analyst Fred Kaplan deliberately deflated its
estimate of excess deaths. The mainstream media either ignored the
study entirely or reported it belatedly, as one among several widely
varying estimates. Roberts acknowledges that the total of 100,000 is
an estimate, but emphasizes that it is a minimum estimate. If
the total of excess civilian deaths is really closer to 200,000,
which is quite possible, that hardly discredits the studys
conclusions!
The Iraq Body Count (available at
http://iraqbodycount.net),
which totals up deaths from newspaper reports that are confirmed by
hospitals and morgues and carefully excludes any deaths that
conceivably involve Iraqi combatants, reveals the same trends and
patterns of mortality. In considering the Lancet study, this
organization stated: Iraq Body Count, like the Lancet study
[reports] excess deaths that can be associated directly with the
military intervention and occupation of the country. In doing this,
and via different paths, both studies have arrived at one conclusion
which is not up for serious debate: the number of deaths from
violence has skyrocketed since the war was launched
. Finally,
we reject any attempt, by pro-war governments and others, to
minimise the seriousness of deaths so far recorded by comparing them
to higher figures, be they of deaths under Saddam's regime, or in
other much larger-scale wars
. Nevertheless, the Lancet's
estimate of 100,000 deathswhich is on the scale of the death toll
from Hiroshimahas, if it is accurate, such serious
implications
.
Roberts concluded by emphasizing that the American and English
language press is embedded with the U.S. and coalition military
forces. They do not see or hear what Arabic speaking reporters from
nonaligned nations do. Independent journalists in Iraq constantly
risk death by kidnapping, accident, or friendly fire. The
progressive Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena was compiling a
report on civilian casualties resulting from U.S. air assaults
during the recent attack on Fallujah. At the very least, the killing
of her bodyguard during her release from captivity suggests the
tendency of U.S. troops to shoot at anyone who doesnt understand
their orders and comply instantly. The war of occupation in Iraq is
truly a reign of terror.
Newton Dialogues on Peace and War
PO Box 610395
Newton MA 02461
http://www.newtondialog.org
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