« SNP ink cartridge appeal | Main | Following the US election »
October 30, 2004
The number of deaths in Iraq
From time to time, I have looked at the Iraq Body Count site
www.iraqbodycount.net/. This website has played an important role in tracking the number of civilian deaths announced in the media. Currently they are giving minimum/maximum figures of 14,181 to 16,312 people ‘reported killed by military intervention in Iraq’.
Like a number of other people, I have been assuming a total figure of around 20,000 (or even 25,000) dead including soldiers. This figure would represent a bloody, incompetently executed removal of the Baathist dictatorship, but would not necessarily mean that Iraq was worse off than it was under the personalized terror of Saddam Hussein.
This has to be reassessed with the publication in the Lancet of figures based on a survey of 33 areas of Iraq by doctors led by Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. This study suggests a death toll of 100,000 or more. Given the sound methodology of the study, it seems clear that we have seriously underestimated the loss of life in Iraq. Whether the toll is really above 100,000 may or may not be proven, but it seems likely that the total is very much higher than 20,000 to 25,000. The situation in Iraq may well be worse than it was under Saddam.
Where does that leave Blair? Getting rid of Saddam has been the one remaining justification for the invasion left to the PM. Even that is now undermined.
Where does that leave the Labour Party, formerly the party of the social conscience, the party most supportive of the United Nations? Labour are morally bankrupt - probably for a generation.
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html?gusrc=rss
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3962969.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3964311.stm
www.snp.org/index_hires.php?pageName=news/newsdetail.php?newsID=2562
Posted by Simon Holledge at October 30, 2004 01:25 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.skakagrall.com/cgi-bin/MT/mt-tb.cgi/112