[lbo-talk] Juan Cole on Death Math in Iraq

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Oct 29 04:15:43 PDT 2004


http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109902941049326214

Friday, October 29, 2004

US Has Killed 100,000 in Iraq: The Lancet

The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, reports that the US

and coalition forces (but mainly the US Air Force) has killed 100,000

Iraqi civilians since the fall of Saddam on April 9, 2003.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/29/1098992290312.html?oneclick=true

Previous estimates for civilian deaths since the beginning of the war

ranged up to 16,000, with the number of Iraqi troops killed during the

war itself put at about 6,000.

The troubling thing about these results is that they suggest that the

US may soon catch up with Saddam Hussein in the number of civilians

killed. How many deaths to blame on Saddam is controverial. He did

after all start both the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. But he also

started suing for peace in the Iran-Iraq war after only a couple of

years, and it was Khomeini who dragged the war out until 1988. But if

we exclude deaths of soldiers, it is often alleged that Saddam killed

300,000 civilians. This allegation seems increasingly suspect. So far

only 5000 or so persons have been found in mass graves. But if Roberts

and Burnham are right, the US has already killed a third as many Iraqi

civilians in 18 months as Saddam killed in 24 years.

The report is based on extensive household survey research in Iraq in

September of 2004. Les Roberts and Gilbert Burnham found that the vast

majority of the deaths were the result of US aerial bombardment of

Iraqi cities, which they found especially hard on "women and

children." After excluding the Fallujah data (because Fallujah has

seen such violence that it might skew the nationwide averages), they

found that Iraqis were about 1.5 times more likely to die of violence

during the past 18 months than they were in the year and a half before

the war. Before the war, the death rate was 5 per thousand per year,

and afterwards it was 7.9 per thousand per year (excluding Fallujah).

My own figuring is that, given a population of 25 million, that yields

72,500 excess deaths per year, or at least 100,000 for the whole

period since April 9, 2003.

The methodology of this study is very tight, but it does involve

extrapolating from a small number and so could easily be substantially

incorrect. But the methodology also is standard in such situations and

was used in Bosnia and Kosovo.

I think the results are probably an exaggeration. But they can't be so

radically far off that the 16,000 deaths previously estimated can

still be viewed as valid. I'd say we have to now revise the number up

to at least many tens of thousand--which anyway makes sense. The

16,000 estimate comes from counting all deaths reported in the Western

press, which everyone always knew was only a fraction of the true

total. (I see deaths reported in al-Zaman every day that don't show up

in the Western wire services).

The most important finding from my point of view is not the magnitude

of civilian deaths, but the method of them. Roberts and Burnham find

that US aerial bombardments are killing far more Iraqi civilians than

had previously been suspected. This finding is also not a surprise to

me. I can remember how, on a single day (August 12), US warplanes

bombed the southern Shiite city of Kut, killing 84 persons, mainly

civilians, in an attempt to get at Mahdi Army militiamen. These deaths

were not widely reported in the US press, especially television. Kut

is a small place and has been relatively quiet except when the US has

been attacking Muqtada al-Sadr, who is popular among some segments of

the population there. The toll in Sadr City or the Shiite slums of

East Baghdad, or Najaf, or in al-Anbar province, must be enormous.

I personally believe that these aerial bombardments of civilian city

quarters by a military occupier that has already conquered the country

are a gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949,

governing the treatment of populations of occupied territories.

Spencer Ackerman at TNR's online blog on Iraq has a long interview

with Burnham about the study, in which Burnham is quite humble about

it not being definitive.

posted by Juan @ 10/29/2004 06:41:35 AM



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list