Guardian leader;Dead Reckoning.. Blair & Iraqi dead

[Englander]

Leader
Thursday December 9, 2004
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1369496,00.html

The phrase "body count" is grim reminder of how the US army boasted of the toll of enemy dead during the Vietnam war - a classic example of the dehumanisation of language in wartime. But the demand that a tally be kept of Iraqi casualties is right and necessary. This week the number of US combat deaths passed the 1,000 mark. We know too that at least 70 Britons have died. But no definitive figures are available about the number of Iraqis killed in the same period. As the peers, health professionals, writers and religious leaders - plus a former assistant chief of the defence staff - who have asked the prime minister to set up an inquiry into Iraqi casualties have noted, while the government rejects a recent estimate by the Lancet that up to 98,000 have died, it has failed to come up with any statistics of its own.

Tony Blair's reference in the Commons yesterday to figures provided by the Iraqi health ministry (3,853 civilians killed between April and October) is not adequate. Despite the handover of sovereignty, the US, Britain and their coalition partners hold sway over large areas of the country. Mr Blair's response that deaths are caused by "terrorists and insurgents" is beside the point. Even if every fatality attributed to the multinational coalition was caused by defensive action, or even by accident, it should still be duty bound to count them.

Campaigners point out that information from Iraqi hospital, mortuary and other sources can be combined with media and military reports to establish the most accurate data possible. Such methods have produced an estimate of 14,600-16,800 by the Iraqi Body Count group.

International humanitarian law requires occupying powers to protect civilians. It is not enough for the government merely to repeat that it is committed to that. Without knowing how many Iraqis have been killed and injured no one can calculate the full cost of the war, whether Britain and its allies are meeting their obligations, or whether their military tactics - in Falluja for example - are appropriate. The dead deserve truth, not a political propaganda battle.