Citing what it alleges were researchers’ interviews of households in 1000 neighbourhoods and villages across Iraq, the World Health Organization issued a new report putting the Iraqi death toll during the period between March 2003 and June 2006 at 151,000 – a figure I, among many other political analysts and specialists highly dispute.The figure presented in the WHO’s survey, which suggests that over half of “violent deaths” took place in Baghdad, is actually quarter that released over a year ago in a famous Lancet article.
In October 2006, the Lancet report, prepared by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, estimated that at least 655,000 Iraqis have died since the war broke out on March 20 2003.
An even more shocking estimate was given by Just Foreign Policy, one of the leading international think tanks, which stated that probably over 1 million Iraqis have died in post-invasion Iraq. The few media outlets that bothered to publish the report, which based its findings of the Lancet report and the civilian casualty database Iraq Body Count, however, downplayed the significance of such horrific estimates-expressing indifference to the fact that it suggests unbelievably higher death rates than what the U.S. gov. and the Pentagon usually claim. Also top officials at the Bush administration rejected the Just Foreign policy findings outright.
The recent statement of Mohamed Ali, a WHO statistician who took part in the compilation of the survey, left me laughing out loud.
Indirectly admitting shortcomings in WHO report, Mr. Ali said that “the assessment of the death toll in conflict situations is extremely difficult and household survey results have to be interpreted with caution. However, in the absence of comprehensive death registration and hospital reporting, household surveys are the best we can do.”
The statement of Minister of Health of Iraq, Salih Mahdi Motlab Al-Hasanawi, was even funnier. Probably attempting justify possible criticism of political analysts, very likely to question the findings of the survey, Mr. Salih said that “some homes could not be visited because of high levels of insecurity and more people move residence in times of conflict. These factors were taken into account in the analysis as they may affect the accuracy of the survey work.”
The WHO survey is another attempt to downplay the irreversible damage inflicted upon the Iraqi nation as a result of the illegal invasion of the country. Previous attempts included another farce report presented by Iraq Body Count which provoked equal controversy by suggesting that only 35,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the war since the fall of Baghdad nearly five years ago.
The United Nations (UN) and the United States have been presenting biased reports since the conflict started; providing incredible surveys all aimed at covering the horrendous magnitude of the war impact and the massive human loss.
Continuing the U.S. meaningless military operations in Iraq will just make things worse. Peace is the only answer to the current mayhem in the turmoil-plagued country, and an immediate withdrawal of the invading troops in Iraq is what the nation needs.
Contrary to what the Bush administration has been claiming over the invasion’s four years, numerous polls and opinion surveys carried out since the war began up until today show that the vast majority of Iraqis, whether Sunnis, Shias, or Kurds, want the U.S. troops to fully withdraw.
The prospects of a greater catastrophe spreading beyond Iraq’s borders to swallow the entire Middle East region and unprecedented rise of terrorism and terror attacks are now greater than they had been at any time, unless the U.S. seriously considers changing course in Iraq, after its policy and the decision to launch an illegal war to capture the country’s riches not liberate it has reaped unintended results.
Nearly five years ago, Mr Bush sold his war pretext based on a lie, actually a series of lies that kept unfolding as the warring troops received a slap after the other at the hands of the so-called Iraqi insurgency. The U.S. claimed it launched the war to liberate the oppressed Iraqi nation from the hands of its dictator Saddam Hussein who proved to be angelic, if we compared his rule to the irreversible damage the U.S. armies inflicted upon today’s Iraq.
Any future attempt to cover or underestimate the real impact of the war is just deemed to failure.
The world has just had enough of the biased coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Maha Youssuf
