From the New York Times in the USA:
Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study SaysSee also here.by SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
October 11, 2006
BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 — A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.
The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq.
That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion.
But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.
It is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
It uses samples of casualties from Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006.
The findings of the previous study, published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, in 2004, had been criticized as high, in part because of its relatively narrow sampling of about 1,000 families, and because it carried a large margin of error.
The new study is more representative, its researchers said, and the sampling is broader: it surveyed 1,849 Iraqi families in 47 different neighborhoods across Iraq.
The selection of geographical areas in 18 regions across Iraq was based on population size, not on the level of violence, they said.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
Comments by Cindy Sheehan: here.
If Bush supporters want to attack these figures on Iraq: the Bush administration accepted similar statistics published in The Lancet, of numbers of dead people in Darfur, Sudan, as they have a conflict with the government there.
However, their own figures seem to be something different …
How does George W Bush’s record as a killer in Iraq, compare to that of Saddam Hussein?
Bush’s record here, like in torture in Iraq, manages to beat even Saddam Hussein.
Iraq: death of British cameraman Terry Lloyd; see also here; and here; and here; and here.
Poll: Iraqis want US troops out.
Britain: Gordon Brown and Iraq war.
Britain: play on Iraq war.
Correspondence with Iraq Body Count on figures: here.
In case you missed it, the results of this scientific study were released today. It paints an even grimmer picture of the human toll from the Iraq war than any of us had even imagined
Iraq deaths put at 655,000
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - American and Iraqi public health experts have calculated that about 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent violence, far above previous estimates.
Researchers used household interviews rather than body counts to estimate how many more Iraqis had died because of the war than used to die annually in peacetime.
“We estimate that as a consequence of the coalition invasion of March 18, 2003, about 655,000 Iraqis have died above the number that would be expected in a non-conflict situation,” said Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States.
That means 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population have died because of the invasion and ensuing strife, he said.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters “The report is unbelievable. These numbers are exaggerated and not precise.”
Iraqi government officials put the total Iraqi death toll since the war started in March 2003 at 40,000.
The team’s study, published online by the medical journal The Lancet, estimated pre-war deaths in Iraq at 143,000 a year, and said Iraq’s death rate is now 2-1/2 times that of the pre-war period.
“… the combination of a long duration and tens of millions of people affected has made this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century,” Burnham said.
The survey was a follow-up to an earlier study which showed that nearly 100,000 more people than normal died in Iraq between March 2003 and September 2004.
The number of extra Iraqis who have died since March 2003 includes deaths from all causes, including those due to a rise in certain diseases and illnesses, the study said.
Nearly 60 percent of the dead were boys and men aged between 15 and 44. “Over the 40 month-period of the study, approximately 31 percent of households attributed the death of their household member to coalition forces,” Burnham said in a teleconference.
“Of the deaths, we found an increasing proportion were due to car bombs but the majority were due to gunfire,” Burnham said in a teleconference.
Burnham added the researchers were unable to determine which deaths were due to sectarian or criminal violence.
Although the study is released ahead of November mid-term elections in the United States, Burnham said it was not politically motivated.
HOUSEHOLD SURVEY
The figures are based on a survey conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad between May and June of 1,849 households including 12,801 household members in 47 randomly selected sites across Iraq.
They questioned the inhabitants about births, deaths, and migrations. The same survey methods were used to measure mortality in other conflict areas such as the Congo, Kosovo and Sudan, according to the researchers.
The death rate in Iraq rose to 13.3 per 1000 people per year from 5.5 per year before the invasion, according to the study.
Other estimates based on think tank figures and media sources calculate the number of extra Iraqi deaths to be much lower. The Iraq Body Count Database says between 43,850 and 48,693 civilians have died since the invasion.
“Our total estimate is much higher than other mortality estimates because we used a population-based, active method for collecting mortality information rather than passive methods that depend on counting bodies or tabulated media reports of violent deaths,” Burnham said.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Comment by Administrator — October 11, 2006 @ 6:33 pm
War Crimes Report on Iraq published
Posted by: “Charles Jenks” charles@traprockpeace.org chaspeace
Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:48 pm (PST)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 10, 2006
CONTACT: Consumers for Peace
http://www.consumersforpeace.org
Nick Mottern nickmottern@earthlink.net
War Crimes Report Shows US Violations of International Law and Demands Prosecution of US Military and Civilian Leaders
The violence of the Iraq War, the chaos that has come to Iraq, can be traced directly to the illegality of the invasion and occupation of that country and the illegality of the tactics and weapons being used to maintain the occupation. “U.S. War Crimes in Iraq and Mechanisms for Accountability” documents these violations and calls on us all to demand investigation and prosecution of violations of international law by military and civilian leaders. This come on the day when a new Lancet study shows that 655,000 Iraqis have died due to the war.
The report was prepared by Consumers for Peace.org with the advice of Karen Parker, noted lawyer in human rights and humanitarian law. Ms. Parker is President of the San-Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers and Chief Delegate to the United Nations for the Los Angeles-based International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project (IED/AHL), an accredited non-governmental organization on the U.N. Secretary-General’s list.
Dahr Jamail, noted independent journalist who spent more than eight months reporting from occupied Iraq, writes the following about the report:
“I cannot endorse strongly enough this report prepared by Karen Parker regarding U.S. war crimes in Iraq. Having witnessed much of what is so well documented in this report, it is a clear and encompassing indictment of the Bush Administration for the war crimes they are directly responsible for in Iraq. Until evidence such as this begins to see the light of day in a court of law and the perpetrators brought to justice, the world remains unsafe and unstable from an administration determined to rule the world. After witnessing what they are capable of in Iraq, I have no doubt these people will not stop in their quest for world domination. Instead, they must be stopped. And the only way to do that is bring the guilty to justice. This document will help achieve that goal.”
Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, three-time nominee for the Noble Peace Prize, who has visited Iraq 28 times in the last 15 years, writes of the report:
“After spending four days in the fortified and secure Green Zone, in Iraq, during September ’06, former Secretary of State James Baker III assured that the investigative panel he led had not spent any time “wringing our hands over what mistakes might or might not have been created in the past.” (NYT, September 20, 2006). The “Consumers for Peace” report on war crimes committed in Iraq helps us understand our responsibility not to wring our hands but rather to demand accountability from elected representatives by delivering this report to them and to local media. How many people killed? How many families torn apart? How many homes destroyed? How many livelihoods gone? How many lives ruined? How many cities sacrificed? We bear responsibility to end the war in Iraq, insist on just reparations for suffering caused, and promote careful, legal scrutiny of the crimes committed. This report beckons all who read it to stop collaborating with illegal, immoral warmongers who recklessly afflict Iraq.”
Neil MacKay, multi-award winning Home Affairs and Investigations
Editor of the Sunday Herald (Scotland), writes:” What has happened in Iraq is a great sin and a great crime. The invasion and occupation have stained the concepts of democracy, freedom and liberty; and disgraced the good name of the people of both the United States of America and Great Britain. As a journalist who has investigated the roots of this war, and the on-going horror of what is happening in Iraq, I fully commend this report to readers. It is an important reminder of the blood which is on the hands of our leaders, and the shame that the governments of the UK and the USA have brought to the British and American people by perpetrating a criminal war in our name.”
The report is being published on the internet by:
Consumers for Peace
http://www.consumersforpeace.org
Traprock Peace Center
http://www.traprockpeace.org
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
http://www.vcnv.org
Uruknet
http://www.uruknet.info
Information Clearing House
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
Association of Humanitarian Lawyers
http://www.humanlaw.org
Charles Jenks
Chair of Advisory Board
Traprock Peace Center
103 Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
http://www.traprockpeace.org
Comment by Administrator — October 12, 2006 @ 6:10 pm
Ann Wright and international networks join War Crimes Report
Posted by: “Charles Jenks” charles@traprockpeace.org chaspeace
Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:33 pm (PST)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 12, 2006
CONTACT: Consumers for Peace, http://www.consumer sforpeace. org
Nick Mottern nickmottern@ earthlink. net
Ann Wright joins endorsers of War Crimes Report
International Anti-Occupation Network and Stop the War Coalition (UK)
join report publishers
“The War Crimes Report is an extraordinarily comprehensive and
important presentation of international law that governs the conduct
of nations and their military forces. The Report documents the
blatant violations of international and domestic law by the Bush
administration and US military forces including the use of illegal
military tactics and illegal weapons.” - Ann Wright
Retired U.S. Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright today endorsed a new
report on U.S. war crimes in Iraq, which was released yesterday, the
same day of the publication of the study, by Johns Hopkins and Al
Mustansiriya universities (in cooperation with the Center for
International Studies/MIT) , that found that approximately 600,000
people have been killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
“U.S. War Crimes in Iraq and Mechanisms for Accountability”
documents U.S. war crimes in Iraq and calls on U.S. public to demand
investigation and prosecution of violations of international law by
military and civilian leaders.
The report is being published internationally on the internet
organizations listed below, and has gained international support
today from the International Anti-Occupation Network (which is
publishing the report through The BRussells Tribunal) and the Stop
the War Coalition (UK).
The report was prepared by Consumers for Peace.org with the advice of
Karen Parker, noted lawyer in human rights and humanitarian law. Ms.
Parker is President of the San-Francisco- based Association of
Humanitarian Lawyers and Chief Delegate to the United Nations for the
Los Angeles-based International Educational Development/ Humanitarian
Law Project (IED/AHL), an accredited non-governmental organization on
the U.N. Secretary-General’ s list.
Ann Wright’s full statement
Ann Wright, 29-year US Army veteran who retired as a Colonel and
US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war in
Iraq commented on the War Crimes Report:
“While in the US Army at Ft Bragg, NC, I taught to US military
officers and noncommissioned officers the responsibilities of
military forces under the Geneva Convention and the Law of Land
Warfare, as well as the obligations of an Occupying Power.
“The War Crimes Report is an extraordinarily comprehensive and
important presentation of international law that governs the conduct
of nations and their military forces. The Report documents the
blatant violations of international and domestic law by the Bush
administration and US military forces including the use of illegal
military tactics and illegal weapons.
“Because of a huge media failure in the United States, many Americans
do not realize how many times the Bush administration has violated
international law. But, the rest of the world knows very well the
extent of these crimes.
“As a retired military officer, I know that accountability is one of
the foundation elements of the US military. The Bush administration
has undercut the professionalism of our military forces by
encouraging and condoning the violation of international and domestic
war in treatment of detainees, torture and use of illegal tactics and
weapons. For the sake of our own military we must demand
accountability from civilian leaders, as well as our military forces.
This report provides specific mechanisms for much-needed
accountability of criminal behaviour by Bush administration policy
makers and by US military forces.”
International Publishing Group for War Crimes Report
Consumers for Peace
http://www.consumer sforpeace. org
Association of Humanitarian Lawyers
http://www.humanlaw .org
Traprock Peace Center
http://www.traprock peace.org
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
http://www.vcnv. org
Uruknet
http://www.uruknet. info
Information Clearing House
http://www.informat ionclearinghouse .info
AfterDowningStreet. org
http://www.afterdow ningstreet. org
Socialist Worker weekly newspaper
http://www.socialis tworker.org
The Brussells Tribunal (for International Anti-Occupation Network)
http:/www.brusselst ribunal.org
Stop the War Coalition (UK)
http://www.stopthew ar.co.uk
Ann Wright joined other individuals with extensive knowledge of Iraq
in endorsing the report:
Dahr Jamail, noted independent journalist who spent more than
eight months reporting from occupied Iraq, writes the following :
“I cannot endorse strongly enough this report prepared by Karen
Parker regarding U.S. war crimes in Iraq. Having witnessed much of
what is so well documented in this report, it is a clear and
encompassing indictment of the Bush Administration for the war crimes
they are directly responsible for in Iraq. Until evidence such as
this begins to see the light of day in a court of law and the
perpetrators brought to justice, the world remains unsafe and
unstable from an administration determined to rule the world. After
witnessing what they are capable of in Iraq, I have no doubt these
people will not stop in their quest for world domination. Instead,
they must be stopped. And the only way to do that is bring the
guilty to justice. This document will help achieve that goal.”
Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence,
three-time nominee for the Noble Peace Prize, who has visited Iraq 28
times in the last 15 years, writes:
“After spending four days in the fortified and secure Green Zone,
in Iraq, during September ’06, former Secretary of State James Baker
III assured that the investigative panel he led had not spent any
time “wringing our hands over what mistakes might or might not have
been created in the past.” (NYT, September 20, 2006). The “Consumers
for Peace” report on war crimes committed in Iraq helps us understand
our responsibility not to wring our hands but rather to demand
accountability from elected representatives by delivering this report
to them and to local media. How many people killed? How many
families torn apart? How many homes destroyed? How many livelihoods
gone? How many lives ruined? How many cities sacrificed? We bear
responsibility to end the war in Iraq, insist on just reparations for
suffering caused, and promote careful, legal scrutiny of the crimes
committed. This report beckons all who read it to stop collaborating
with illegal, immoral warmongers who recklessly afflict Iraq.”
Neil MacKay, multi-award winning Home Affairs and Investigations
Editor of the Sunday Herald (Scotland), writes:
“What has happened in Iraq is a great sin and a great crime. The
invasion and occupation have stained the concepts of democracy,
freedom and liberty; and disgraced the good name of the people of
both the United States of America and Great Britain. As a journalist
who has investigated the roots of this war, and the on-going horror
of what is happening in Iraq, I fully commend this report to readers.
It is an important reminder of the blood which is on the hands of our
leaders, and the shame that the governments of the UK and the USA
have brought to the British and American people by perpetrating a
criminal war in our name.”
####
Charles Jenks
Chair of Advisory Board
Traprock Peace Center
103 Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
http://www.traprock peace.org
Comment by Administrator — October 13, 2006 @ 10:49 am
Posted by: “Becky Louden” bebecca2298@yahoo.com bebecca2298
Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:47 am (PST)
Dead Iraqis, Just Like Jelly Beans
50,000? 500,000? How many have been killed in our miserable war? Bush tries to count
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
George W. Bush was confused.
It certainly wasn’t the first time. He was muttering a sullen response to a reporter’s question about some big new study. He was saying no, he really didn’t believe that it was possible that the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq had resulted in the brutal deaths of more than half a million Iraqi civilians, about 650,000, or 2.5 percent of the entire Iraq population, or one heckuva lot more jelly beans than you could fit into that giant glass jar at the county fair.
Wait, what? Where did that last part come from? Did he just say that out loud? Check the icky media people: No one was looking at him strangely. No reporters were dialing their cell phones in a delirious rush to call their editors with a crazy new Dubya quote. OK. Whew. Must have been in his head. Thank goodness.
Back to business. No, he told the reporter, he could not believe that 650K number, partly because one of his top generals said that number was probably all wrong and that the real number was probably closer to 30,000 or 50,000, even though the general had no real research to back that up and even though this general is one of the best yes-men money can buy.
Not that George was actually thinking any of that, exactly. That would be far too complicated. But he could feel the negativity coming at him like a dank breeze, a nasty mosquito in his ear, a hot rash on his skin. And man, he was itchy.
Oh no, he thought. It was happening again. He was saying one thing to the press but his mind was drifting over to something else, this time back to his silver-spooned youth, how he used to stare longingly at that giant jar at the county fair every year, the one filled to the brim with colorful jelly beans and you paid the big scary guy a dollar and you got to take a guess as to just how many jelly beans there were and if your guess was the closest, you won the whole thing. Wow!
50,000? 500,000? How could he possibly guess? It was a lot of jelly beans, that’s for sure. He wanted that jar so bad. He could eat them all in a few days, easy! Jeb would beg for some and George would maybe let him have just a few, but only if Jeb knelt down before him and kissed his shoes and told George he was the greatest brother ever and even then he’d only let Jeb eat the little brown ones, which George didn’t even like anyway. Ha! Oh, the power of it.
But OK, this was a little different. This death toll thing, he didn’t really know how to process it. Why were the reporters all staring at him like that? After all, there was no way to guess, no victory jar of jelly beans to haul home in satisfied glee. Who would want a giant jar full of dead Iraqis? He couldn’t even eat them. And where would he put such a thing? In the bedroom? The kitchen? Laura would be furious.
Wait wait, what was he thinking? Must … focus. Must get back to reality.
The reporters waited, but George’s mind could not clear. What does half a million bodies look like, anyway? Certainly not like jelly beans. Where do those Iraqi people put them all? Was Iraq big enough to hold them all? Wait, of course it was. Wasn’t it?
George didn’t know. But one thing was certain: It sure sounded like a lot of dead bodies. He heaved a sigh. How could he possibly be responsible for the deaths of so many people? Answer: He couldn’t be. No way. Not with God on his side.
It was all so confusing. After all, there are so many numbers dancing in his head: dead soldiers, crippling deficits, mounting scandals, congressional seats about to be lost to the Democrats, days left until he can retire to the ranch and go back to hacking at dead sticks with a chainsaw and sipping lemonade on the porch. And until then, there was one more historic number now looming over his head like a dark cloud of savage karmic pain.
It was this: To date, 2,763 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq (not counting over 20,000 who’ve been wounded, maimed, crippled — thinking about them just makes Bush’s head hurt. I mean, how do you count the damaged jelly beans? You can’t!). In contrast, 2,973 died in the Sept. 11 attack.
Put another way, very soon Bush’s vicious and unprovoked war will have claimed more American lives than the Sept. 11 terrorists.
It was one of those thoughts. One of those damnable pieces of fact that drove George absolutely crazy, and so he blocked it out and refused to let anyone mention these sorts of “facts” in his presence, and this is why he hated hated hated these damnable reporters and their damnable questions about science and jelly beans and death. Too bad he can’t just flip them all off like Uncle Dick and go for a beer. Man, what he wouldn’t give!
But he was stuck. He had to answer. The mosquitoes of ugly truth buzzed around his ear; the itch was omnipresent. The death toll in Iraq shows no sign of slowing. If the violence in Iraq continues to escalate, it’s possible that within a few years the Iraqi death toll will surpass a million people. A million! The biggest jar of jelly beans he’d ever seen!
Wait, no. Not jelly beans. Dead people. He had to remember that.
Not that George fully believed it. Not that he could possibly comprehend. But there it was. What did these damn reporters expect from him? Death is not pretty! You can’t buy the answer for a dollar! The jelly beans cannot really be counted! Wait, can they?
A time comes when silence is betrayal.
— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Comment by Administrator — October 20, 2006 @ 11:18 am
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@mindspring.com chocoano05
Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:00 pm (PST)
Tuesday, 17 October 2006
http://www.veterans foramerica.org/print_blog.cfm?bID=1272
Excellent Reporting by Montana’s Great Falls Tribune Newspaper Posted By Paul Sullivan at 9:44 AM
Eric Newhouse wrote three strong newspaper articles about the impact of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He provides very disturbing official statistics that should be widely publicized. Here are a few important facts taken from Eric’s articles ….
* According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there’s been a 36 percent increase in the number of Vietnam vets seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder since 2003. [VFA Note: This means there is increased demand by more veterans for limited VA medical services, especially mental healthcare.]
* The latest report by the Veterans Health Administration suggests that as many as one-third of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may have PTSD. [VFA Note: If this is one-third rate is applied to the 1.5 million service members sent to the wars in and around Iraq and Afghanistan, that means VHA may eventually face as many as 500,000 new mental health patients.]
* The yearly divorce rate among U.S. Army soldiers doubled between 2001 and 2003. Among officers, it tripled.
* Christine Krupar, a former police officer who specializes in PTSD treatment in Great Falls, said “the government just is not equipped to handle the workload.”
* “If the trend keeps up, by the end of the fiscal year 2006 (Sept. 30), more than 30,000 service members and veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will seek mental health services at VA due to an initial diagnosis of PTSD,” Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, a member of the House VA Subcommittee on Health, was quoted as saying at the time. [VFA Note: The count is now 34,000 veterans diagnosed by VA with PTSD as of August 2006; with 144,000 veterans treated for readjustment problems at VA’s Vet Centers.]
Emotional scars from Iraq War getting difficult to ignore:
http://www.veterans foramerica.org/articleid/8458
Montana Guardsmen bring home hidden wounds from Iraq War:
http://www.veterans foramerica.org/articleid/8469
Iraq War imagery reopens psychological wounds of Vietnam:
http://www.veterans foramerica.org/articleid/8477
You can contact Eric Newhouse and thank him for his articles at:
enewhous@greatfal.gannett.com
Comment by Administrator — October 20, 2006 @ 11:20 am
your pretty good for a commie, but you must remember to get your facts togeather better, I did the same thing in the 60s and it don’t work anymore. You eather got fired or did not get a job you wanted or the young lady can’t get layed like she wants so everyone wants to strik out. Get it togeather and talk about the real stuf finsted of listeneing to rumers and not really knowing what your talikng about.
Good luck! and come up with something thats alittle more belivible.
Ray
Us Army Military Police Retired.
Comment by Ray — March 21, 2007 @ 3:38 am
Hi Ray #6, I note that *you* do not “talk about the real stuf” [your spelling] of this thread: the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.
Comment by Administrator — March 21, 2007 @ 8:44 am