1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused
by US Occupation
Sources:
After Downing Street, July 6, 2007
Title: “Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month?
Or Is It More?”
Author: Michael Schwartz
AlterNet, September 17, 2007
Title: “Iraq death toll rivals Rwanda genocide, Cambodian killing
fields”
Author: Joshua Holland
Reuters (via AlterNet), January 7, 2008
Title: “Iraq conflict has killed a million, says survey”
Author: Luke Baker
Inter Press Service, March 3, 2008
Title: “Iraq: Not our country to Return to”
Authors: Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail
Student Researchers: Danielle Stanton, Tim LeDonne, and Kat Pat Crespán
Faculty Evaluator: Heidi LaMoreaux, PhD
Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the
2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British
polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest
that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of
the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000
believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching
the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing
Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.
ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces.
Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala
and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities
refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414
adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had
at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as
opposed to natural cause.
Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant
narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being
perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is
ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored
2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of
deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent
were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that
if a low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused
by US forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are
directly US perpetrated.
Even with the lower confirmed figures, by the end of 2006, an average
of 5,000 Iraqis had been killed every month by US forces since the beginning
of the occupation. However, the rate of fatalities in 2006 was twice
as high as the overall average, meaning that the American average in
2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or over 300 Iraqis every day. With
the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.
Schwartz points out that the logic to this carnage lies in a statistic
released by the US military and reported by the Brookings Institute:
for the first four years of the occupation the American military sent
over 1,000 patrols each day into hostile neighborhoods, looking to capture
or kill “insurgents” and “terrorists.” (Since February
2007, the number has increased to nearly 5,000 patrols a day, if we
include the Iraqi troops participating in the American surge.) Each
patrol invades an average of thirty Iraqi homes a day, with the mission
to interrogate, arrest, or kill suspects. In this context, any fighting
age man is not just a suspect, but a potentially lethal adversary. Our
soldiers are told not to take any chances (see Story #9).
According to US military statistics, again reported by the Brookings
Institute, these patrols currently result in just under 3,000 firefights
every month, or just under an average of one hundred per day (not counting
the additional twenty-five or so involving our Iraqi allies). Thousands
of patrols result in thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths and unconscionably
brutal detentions.
Iraqis’ attempts to escape the violence have resulted in a refugee
crisis of mammoth proportion. According to the United Nations Refugee
Agency and the International Organization for Migration, in 2007 almost
5 million Iraqis had been displaced by violence in their country, the
vast majority of which had fled since 2003. Over 2.4 million vacated
their homes for safer areas within Iraq, up to 1.5 million were living
in Syria, and over 1 million refugees were inhabiting Jordan, Iran,
Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Gulf States. Iraq’s refugees, increasing
by an average of almost 100,000 every month, have no legal work options
in most host states and provinces and are increasingly desperate. (1)
Yet more Iraqis continue to flee their homes than the numbers returning,
despite official claims to the contrary. Thousands fleeing say security
is as bad as ever, and that to return would be to accept death. Most
of those who return are subsequently displaced again.
Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail quote an Iraqi engineer now working
at a restaurant in Damascus, “Return to Iraq? There is no Iraq
to return to, my friend. Iraq only exists in our dreams and memories.”
Another interviewee told the authors, “The US military say Fallujah
is safe now while over 800 men are detained there under the worst conditions.
. . . At least 750 out of the 800 detainees are not resistance fighters,
but people who refused to collaborate with occupation forces and their
tails.” (Iraqis who collaborate with occupation forces are commonly
referred to as “tails of the Americans.”)
Another refugee from Baghdad said, “I took my family back home
in January. The first night we arrived, Americans raided our house and
kept us all in one room while their snipers used our rooftop to shoot
at people. I decided to come back here [Damascus] the next morning after
a horrifying night that we will never forget.”
Citation
1. “The Iraqi Displacement Crisis,” Refugees International,
March 3, 2008.
UPDATE BY MICHAEL SCHWARTZ
The mortality statistics cited in “Is the United States Killing
10,000 Iraqis Every Month?” were based on another article suitable
for Project Censored recognition, a scientific investigation of deaths
caused by the war in Iraq. The original article, published in Lancet
in 2006, received some dismissive coverage when it was released, and
then disappeared from view as the mainstream media returned to reporting
biased estimates that placed Iraqi casualties at about one-tenth the
Lancet estimates. The corporate media blackout of the original study
extended to my article as well, and has continued unabated, though the
Lancet article has withstood several waves of criticism, while being
confirmed and updated by other studies (Censored
2006, #2).
By early 2008, the best estimate, based on extrapolations and replications
of the Lancet study, was that 1.2 million Iraqis had died as a consequence
of the war. This figure has not, to my knowledge, been reported in any
mass media outlet in the United States.
The blackout of the casualty figures was matched by a similar blackout
of other main evidence in my article: that the Bush administration military
strategy in Iraq assures vast property destruction and lethality on
a daily basis. Rules of engagement that require the approximately one
thousand US patrols each day to respond to any hostile act with overwhelming
firepower—small arms, artillery, and air power—guarantee that
large numbers of civilians will suffer and die. But the mainstream media
refuses to cover this mayhem, even after the Winter Soldier meetings
in March 2008 featured over one hundred Iraq veterans who testified
to their own participation in what they call “atrocity producing
situations.” (see Story #9)
The effectiveness of the media blackout is vividly illustrated by an
Associated Press poll conducted in February 2007, which asked a representative
sample of US residents how many Iraqis had died as a result of the war.
The average respondent thought the number was under 10,000, about 2
percent of the actual total at that time. This remarkable mass ignorance,
like so many other elements of the Iraq War story, received no coverage
in the mass media, not even by the Associated Press, which commissioned
the study.
The Iraq Veterans Against the War has made the brutality of the occupation
their special activist province. The slaughter of the Iraqi people is
the foundation of their demand for immediate and full withdrawal of
US troops, and the subject of their historic Winter Soldier meetings
in Baltimore. Though there was no mainstream US media coverage of this
event, the live streaming on Pacifica Radio and on the IVAW website
reached a huge audience—including a vast number of active duty
soldiers—with vivid descriptions of atrocities committed by the
US war machine. A growing number of independent news sites now feature
regular coverage of this aspect of the war, including Democracy Now!,
Tom Dispatch, Dahr Jamail’s MidEast Dispatches, Informed Comment,
Antiwar.com, and ZNet.
UPDATE BY MAKI AL-NAZZAL AND DAHR JAMAIL
The promotion of US general David Petraeus to head CENTCOM, and General
Raymond Odierno to replace Petraeus as commanding general of the Multi-National
Force in Iraq, provoked a lot of anger amongst Iraqis in both Syria
and Jordan. The two generals who convinced US and international society
of improvement in Iraq do not seem to have succeeded in convincing Iraqi
refugees of their success.
“Just like the Bush Administration decorated Paul Bremer (former
head of the Coalition Provisional Authority), they are rewarding others
who participated in the destruction to Iraq,” stated Muhammad Shamil,
an Iraqi journalist who fled Iraq to Syria in 2006. “What they
call violence was concentrated in some parts of Iraq, but now spread
to be all over the country, thanks to US war heroes. People are getting
killed, evicted or detained by the thousands, from Basra (South) to
Mosul (North).”
Other Iraqi refugees seem to have changed attitudes regarding their
hopes to return. Compared to when this story was published in March
2008, the refugee crisis continues to deepen. This is exacerbated by
the fact that most Iraqis have no intention of returning home. Instead,
they are looking for permanent residence in other countries.
“I decided to stop dreaming of going back home and find myself
a new home anywhere in the world if I could,” said thirty-two-year-old
Maha Numan in Syria, “I have been a refugee for three years now
living on the dream of return, but I decided to stop dreaming. I have
lost faith in all leaders of the world after the surges of Basra, Sadr
City and now Mosul. This seems to be endless and one has to work harder
on finding a safe haven for one’s family.”
Iraqis in Syria know a lot more of the news about their country than
most journalists. At an Internet café in Damascus, each of them
calls his hometown and reports the happenings of the day to other Iraqi
refugees. News of ongoing violence across much of Iraq convinces them
to remain abroad.
“There were four various explosions in Fallujah today,” said
Salam Adel, who worked as a translator for US forces in Fallujah in
2005. “And they say it is safe to go back! Damn them, go back for
what? For roadside bombs or car bombs?”
It has been important, politically, for the Bush administration to
claim that the situation in Iraq is improving. This claim has been assisted
by a complicit corporate media. However, the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria,
and over 750,000 in Jordan, will tell you differently. Otherwise, they
would not remain outside of Iraq.
To obtain updated information on the refugee crisis, see http://www.irinnews.org/IRIN-ME.aspx,
http://www.iraqredcrescent.org/,
http://www.refugeesinternational.org/section/waystohelp,
http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html,
and http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/.
To obtain updated information on the number of deaths in Iraq see http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html