John Sloboda, Co-founder Iraq Body Count (john@iraqbodycount.org)
At least 10,000 civilians have met violent deaths
since the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq. Yet this horrific milestone has hardly
registered in the US/UK media. Iraq Body Count was founded in January 2003
because a small group of American and British volunteers knew, from previous
history (in Serbia, in Afghanistan) that no official count of innocent dead
would ever be made. Even those US and European politicians who opposed the war,
supposedly on humanitarian grounds, are now silent about civilian casualties. The
excuses offered from Washington, London, and even now Baghdad, for failing to
undertake the proper recording and accounting for the casualties of violence –
are ludicrous and self-contradictory. Tony Blair made the following statement
in the House of Commons, on official record, on March 19th 2003 "Let me make it quite clear that our
quarrel is not with the Iraqi people .... [Saddam Hussein] will be responsible
for many, many more deaths even in one year than we will be in any
conflict." If the UK government will not undertake a casualty count,
then this statement is meaningless at best, plain false at worst.
Iraq Body Count’s methodology relies on a minimum of
two reputable media sources for a given incident in which non-combatant civilians
are reported killed. These corroborated incidents are entered into to an
on-line database which adjusts for any variations and uncertainty in reporting
by including a minimum and maximum number of deaths for each incident. We
include all reported non-combatant victims of post-invasion violence in our
database, whether they were killed by occupation or anti-occupation forces. We
reject attempts to blame others for some deaths. If the war was avoidable, all
deaths following from it are the responsibility of those who chose to initiate
war while other options remained open. The situation is even more clear-cut in
the so-called “post-war phase”, when, under resolution 1483 of the Security
Council on May 18th 2003, the USA and UK were given joint and unified
status of “Occupying Authority.” In doing so, the UN bound the USA and UK under
the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 to protect the
life, health, and property of civilians. The failure to adhere to these rules
places every violent death at the door of the Occupying Authority. There was
practically no street violence in the last years of Saddam’s rule. In contrast
deaths by violence (mainly gunshots) in Baghdad alone climbed towards 900 per
month in Summer 2003.
In the war-phase itself, up to May 1st, as
many as 7,350 civilian deaths were recorded by IBC, split in as yet
undetermined proportions between deaths due to “high-tech” aerial bombardment
by US and UK warplanes and those resulting from the decidedly “low-tech” ground
war. Immediately after the war, unexploded munitions and cluster bombs became another
major cause of death. Since May 1st, we have firm reports of another
3,000 deaths, some at the hands of coalition forces, but more caught in the
crossfire between insurgents and coalition forces. The worrying trend of recent
months is the deliberate targeting of civilians by suicide bombers.
Every Iraqi civilian who dies on the streets of
Baghdad brings new recruits to Al-Qaeda, and increases the threat to us all. It
is not only human compassion which motivates the call for a proper accounting
as well as an end to the killing. It is also self- interest. Three practical
things need to be done.
First, we need to “fill in the gaps” in our knowledge
about casualties. We need strong and solid links with agencies and
organisations in Iraq who are undertaking research, and we need go-betweens and
translators.
Second, we need high-profile champions for the work
of counting the dead, here in the UK. A few brave parliamentarians have stuck
their necks above the parapet. We’d particularly like to thank Llew Smith, Adam
Price, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Clare Short, Alice Mahon, and a very few others,
for placing questions about civilian casualties on the parliamentary record and
in the public eye. A few newspapers have also carried reports and op-ed pieces.
We owe a particular debt of gratitude to David Randall and colleagues on the
Independent on Sunday. We also thank the editors of the Guardian Comment page. But
much more needs doing. Maximum public support is needed for our call for an
independent tribunal on civilian deaths.
Third, in the total absence of government or statutory
charitable funding for the work, money is needed to carry on. The entire Iraq Body
Count project has so far been funded out of the pockets of its volunteers and
donations from the general public. Properly funded, we could do more.
March 13th 2004
COMPENSATE THE
10,000 IRAQI WAR VICTIMS NOW!
“More than 10,000 civilians, many of them women and children, have been killed so far in the Iraqi conflict, making the continuing conflict the most deadly war for non-combatants waged by the West since the Vietnam war more than 30 years ago. The passing of this startling milestone has been recorded by Iraq Body Count, the most authoritative organisation monitoring the human cost of the war. Since the invasion began in March, this group of leading academics and campaigners has registered all civilian deaths in Iraq attributable to the conflict. They do this in the absence of any counts by the US, British, or Baghdad authorities.”
David Randall
writing in the Independent on Sunday, February 8th 2004.
“Yes, Americans and British citizens were lied to by the politicians. Yes,
they are owed answers. But the people of Iraq are owed a great deal more, and
that enormous debt belongs at the very centre of any civilised debate about the
war”.
From “Feel guilt: then move on” Naomi Klein. Guardian, Friday February 20th 2003.
“If the war was fought on false
pretences, then every death caused by the war is a death on false pretences. And
if that’s the case, the most urgent question is not who knew what when, but who
owes what to whom?” John Sloboda, co-founder of
Iraq Body Count, interviewed by Naomi Klein in the Guardian, Friday February 20th
2003.
“Iraq Body Count has demanded an independent international tribunal to
examine the war’s death toll and potential compensation, a call which has now
been supported by the former cabinet minister Clare Short”.
David Randall
writing in the Independent on Sunday, February 15th 2003.
THE TASK OF RECORDING AND HONOURING THE INNOCENT DEAD CANNOT BE LEFT TO ANY ONE NATION. ONLY THE AUTHORITY OF A TRANSNATIONAL ORGANISATION SUCH AS THE UNITED NATIONS WILL GIVE THE TASK THE NECESSARY IMPARTIALITY AND AUTHORITY.
Support the
call for a tribunal. Write to your MP. Donate to Iraq Body Count.
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