Finding Leah - September 3rd, 2006

Is it my Aries nature? NO, I mean, Ross is a Scorp but he atleast was ready to indulge my morbid curiosity ( up until when the cumulative research results were too depressing- NOT because of the numbers but because of the impossibility of getting numbers.)
So I was happily surprised when the NYTimes reported on rapidly escalating Iraqi civilian deaths ( NOT because of the escalation but because they atleast reported on it.)
I sent an email to Michael R Gordon the chief war correspondent which wrote the article, and author (co-author?) of a big book about the gulf war>OIF.( 0IF= Operation Iraqi Freedom). Apparently, many people associate being dead with being free, but not me, and NO that's NOT what I wrote him. I simply wrote that me and my Scorp friend were somewhat scandalized that a google search couldn't cough up any credible figures, and asked him if he knew where I might look to find some. Remarkably, my email made it through the NYTimes screener/sorter and to Mr. Gordon's box and he wrote me back;

Heather,

There are a variety reports that deal with this. In general, civilian
casualties are not tabulated with the same precision as military ones.

I am attaching PDF's of Pentagon, Congressional Research Service and
Brookings Institution reports that have data on this.

Also see the site below.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Michael Gordon

3 attachments — Download all attachments
Iraq casualities.pdf
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DODquarterlyreport.pdf
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brookingsiraq.pdf
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SO I read the pdfs. The first one,a Congressional Service Research report was quite upsetting; " No Iraqi or US Government office regularly releases statistics on Iraqi deaths." " The data underlying this chart is classified because it could allow insurgents to assess the effectiveness of their attacks." There was a reference to a website Ross and I had checked out that was totally bogus. ( IMPOSSIBLY low figures that G. Bush has quoted. Even Jack Straw, said their numbers were unreliable and I add, deceivingly so.
The icasualities website has only relatively recently began to include reports of dead civilians.

I wrote Mr. Gordon back:

Thanks again for taking a moment out to answer my query..I read
through the documents you sent me links to. The Congressional service
report was frightening; " The data underlying this chart is classified
because it allow insurgents to assess the effectiveness of their
attacks." and " No Iraqi or US Govt. office regular releases of
statistics on Iraqi deaths...". The (http://icasualties.org/oif/) has
only more recently begun to assess and report Iraqi civilian deaths. I
agree that civilian casualities aren't reported with the same
precision as military ones, but unfortunately, it seems, they haven't
been reported with ANY precision since the source....

OOps! I'd meant to save a draft but accidently sent instead of saved an incompleted email SO....
I continued my message in a further email;

Hi Michael,
I accidently sent off that last email before finishing it...to continue;
IBC only counts deaths that they read about in English language papers
with at least two corroborated sources.
I'm just an ordinary person attempting to place this ongoing OIF into
a somewhat realistic perspective. I'm sure that obtaining any more
accurate counts of Iraqi civilian death toll since the onset of OIF is
not a simple matter but the government DOES seem to have a vested
interest in NOT having the public see this information which of course
makes learning more difficult.
Can you tell me what usually happens when civilians die in Iraq? Are
the bodies taken to morgues? Do the morgues have records? Or, surely
there are hospital records somewhere, or data that measure death rates
before and during OIF.
It may seem that I'm morbidly obsessed with the death count...I don't
know why exactly, it just seems important for me to try and measure
somehow the immeasurable suffering of human beings left behind as a
result from this invasion.
Anyway, sorry for bugging you with my twisted opinions.
If you ever come up with other ideas that might help me to learn about
the civilian deaths in Iraq, again, I'd really appreciate learning
more,
Heather( Rome, It)

He wrote me back (again!);
Heather,

The Iraqi authorities keep statistics on such things. So does the United Nations, drawing on Iraqi morgue records and other sources. I believe some UN figures are referenced in the Pentagon report. At any rate, you might try doing an internet search for UN statistics.

The NY Times has written about the Iraqi and the UN statistics. Here is a article that was done earlier this month. It mentions morgue records. They are generally reliable, but not all inclusive.

Michael



August 16, 2006, Wednesday Late Edition - Final
Section A Page 10 Column 5 Desk: Foreign Desk Length: 1157 words

"Number of Civilian Deaths Highest in July, Iraqis Say "
By EDWARD WONG and DAMIEN CAVE; Sahar Nageeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 15....

>>>Well, I'm not going to post the entire article, which I thought was very good, but only a few of the relevant bits to my haunting search;

"July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government has failed.

An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January."

"The Baghdad morgue reported receiving 1,855 bodies in July, more than half of the total deaths recorded in the country. The morgue tally for July was an 18 percent increase over June."

"When the tally for civilian deaths in July is added to the Iraqi government numbers for earlier months obtained by the United Nations, the total indicates that at least 17,776 Iraqi civilians died violently in the first seven months of this year, or an average of 2,539 per month."

"The Health Ministry did not provide figures for people wounded by attacks in Baghdad but said that at least 3,597 Iraqis were hurt outside the city in July, a 25 percent increase over June."

"United Nations officials and military analysts say the morgue and ministry numbers almost certainly reflect severe undercounting, caused by the haphazard nature of information in a war zone. Many casualties in areas outside Baghdad probably never appear in the official count, said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group in Washington." The United Nations has been tracking civilian casualty figures by collating numbers from the Health Ministry and Baghdad morgue. Last month, it announced that the Iraqi government's numbers indicated that 3,149 violent deaths had occurred in June, or an average of more than 100 per day.

The statistics were significantly higher than previous civilian death tolls, and indicated that the news media had drastically underreported the level of violence in Iraq. The United States government and military have declined to release overall figures on Iraqi civilian casualties, or even say whether they are keeping count."

My last email;
Michael,
That is a helpful article, again, thank you for helping me out. It
occurred to me that I might want to enquire about UN figures as the US
government certainly doesn't seem to want to expose much ( if they are
counting...and it's hard for me to imagine that they aren't.) Looks
like I'll have to do a little math to arrive at present cumulative
results..
It's curious to me that anyone would deny that Iraq is entering if not
already in a civil war, certainly civil conflict and it's resulting
pain have been escalating. I hate it when things have to get worse
before they get better, however, despite sadness (and, I confess, some
rage), I prefer to try to learn more about the situation rather than
ignore it.
Take care, Heather

Well, Maria Ruzicka, may she rest in peace, was on it, the civilian death count that is, until she died from suicider's car bomb on the infamous airport road from Baghdad not long after Saddam's statue toppled. Her legacy is a group called CIVIC (www.civicworldwide.org)

They post a pdf called 'Iraq: counting the casualties' One part I quote;

"WHY NUMBERS MATTER
Civilian casualties are the most tragic consequences of war. In the immediate wake of the staggering number of civilians killed and injured in World War II, the international community recognized this and created a handful of documents to govern the laws of war: four Geneva Conventions of 1949, their two protocols of1977, and customary international law (principles widely accepted and considered binding).
Together, they provide detailed rules on how civilians and captured combatants must be treated such as:
warring forces cannot intentionally attack civilians or their facilities;
all feasible precautions must be taken to minimize harm to civilians;
attacks that do not or cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants are prohibited;
and, attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilians - those outweighing military advantage - are prohibited.

The Fourth Geneva Convention (officially “Convention IV, relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War”) specifically emphasizes protecting noncombatantsfrom harm during periods of armed conflict. The rules apply not only to officially declared wars—an increasingly rare step taken in our modern day—but to any armed conflict as well as cases of partial or total occupation of a territory, even if there is no armed resistance to this occupation. The Fourth Convention is now considered customary international law; therefore, nations at war must abide by its provisions and will be held accountable if they do not.
Common interpretation of the Fourth Convention holds it unethical to launch an attack indiscriminately in such a way that may knowingly cause non-combatants to be killed and any military objective must be weighed against the number of civilians likely to be harmed in achieving it. In modern warfare, it isn’t feasible to completely prevent civilian casualties and this is well understood. There is, however, a legal and moral obligation to proactively avoid harming civilians to the fullest extent possible.
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began in 2003, CIVIC has urged the Pentagon to implement a mechanism to record the number of civilian casualties incurred by U.S. forces. The number of civilians harmed by operations is an important measure of how well U.S. forces are doing in avoiding harm to civilians.

*****Logically, if there is no effort to count civilians, there is no way the U.S. can adequately back up the claim it is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and abiding by its obligations under international law.***** (asterixes mine)

We must also remember that every statistic released on civilians killed and injured represents real human lives and families torn apart. The Pentagon being forthright with the information it keeps on civilians in conflict would let the citizens of Iraq know the U.S., in its authority position, recognizes their suffering and respects those who have been harmed."

Other body count facts I've dug up;

According to an early LA Times article the Iraqi Health Ministry's (which was the first ministry appointed by the US) statistics director was ordered to NOT to count the bodies, by the planning director who takes his orders from the Ministry director, though this was later denied. (by Abbas-the ministry director)

The people reporting the counts from the morgues and the people who collect the data and choose to reveal it or not- are not the same people.

Many Iraqi civilians DON'T bring the bodies to the morgue because they are afraid that this will reveal to the attackers of their families who they are and put them at risk for further assault.

The Iraqi (puppet) health ministry itself is pissed off w/the US Forces and is threatening to not work with them anymore.

I'm not alone with this Iraqi civilian body count desire. Many media sources and humanity organisations are frustrated too.

I wonder if what the Bush administration says regarding the danger of releasing civilian death counts because of it publically revealing to insurgents their effectiveness, is just a cover excuse to avoid having to face responsibilty to the Geneva conventions.