US Intervention in Iraq: In 15 years over 1,000,000 Iraqis Dead

[IndyOp]

This post has been writing itself inside my head over the past several weeks.

If it is overwhelming or wrong from your point of view, then let it go.

I recently encountered (again) the death toll in Indochina that resulted from the Vietnam War: 3+ million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians were killed in that invasion and occupation. How does the loss of life in Iraq compare to Vietnam?

US Intervention in Iraq has resulted in over 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths ->

PERSIAN GULF WAR: 150,000
GULF WAR AFTERMATH: ?????
UN (US/UK) SANCTIONS: Primary cause of 800,000 deaths
IRAQ WAR: 250,000

The Persian Gulf War did not have to happen: Hussein did not invade Kuwait until after he had received an assurance from April Gillespie that the "US had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts." Even if he had invaded, alternatives to war were available. link

The Gulf War Aftermath: Encouraged by American radio broadcasts to rise up against their ‘dictator’, the Kurds of northern Iraq rebelled against a nominally defeated and certainly weakened Saddam Hussein in March of 1991. Fear of being drawn into an Iraqi civil war and possible diplomatic repercussions precluded President Bush from committing US forces to support the Kurds. Within days Iraqi forces recovered and launched a ruthless counteroffensive including napalm and chemical attacks from helicopters. They quickly reclaimed lost territory and crushed the rebellion. By the first week of April, 800 to 1,000 people, mostly the very young and the very old, were dying each day. link

UN (US/UK Sanctions): The United Nations Security Council has maintained comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq from August 1990 until March 2003. Sanctions in Iraq hurt large numbers of innocent civilians not only by limiting the availability of food and medicines, but also by disrupting the whole economy, and reducing the national capacity of water treatment, electrical systems and other infrastructure critical for health and life. The oil-for-food program provided an average of $200 per year for each of 23,000,000 Iraqis - well below the international poverty level. In the UN Security Council, countries urged the US and UK to allow the sanctions to be lifted, but the US/UK would not allow this. link link

Iraq War: A Johns Hopkins University study published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October, 2004. // The figure of 100,000 had been based on somewhat "conservative assumptions", notes Les Roberts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, U.S., who led the study. That estimate excludes Falluja, a hotspot for violence. If the data from this town is included, the compiled studies point to about 250,000 excess deaths since the outbreak of the U.S.-led war. // Eman Ahmad Khamas.... said: "This occupation has destroyed Iraq. Americans don't know that tens of thousands of Iraqis are in prisons. Americans don't know how many have been killed. Lancet reported 100,000 in 2004, not counting Falluja. Now it is something like double this number." link link

PERSIAN GULF WAR: 150,000

At 2:30 a.m. on 17 January 1991 the bombs began to fall, and for forty-two days U.S. aircraft attacked Iraq on an average of once every thirty seconds.

The assault on the Iraqi military....was relentless. More than 40,000 tons of bombs targeted the military, often in proximity to civilian areas. B-52s carpet-bombed military areas from extremely high altitudes. Estimates of the numbers of Iraqi soldiers killed by the end of the bombing ranged from 100,000 to 200,000. On March 22, 1991, the Defense Intelligence Agency placed Iraq’s military casualties at 100,000.

The bombing of Iraq took more than 150,000 lives outright and left a broken and bleeding nation. The bombs killed indiscriminately, mostly Iraqis, but others as well. Among the dead were Muslims and Christians, Kurds and Assyrians, young and old, men, women, children, babies.

Total U.S. war casualties, including thirty-seven acknowledged to have died from "friendly fire," were 148, according to the Pentagon.

Ramsey Clark "Fire & Ice"
http://www.iacenter.org/folder01/fireice.htm

GULF WAR AFTERMATH: ?????

The massive defeat of the Iraqi military machine tempted the Iraqi Kurds to revolt against the Baghdad regime. Encouraged by American radio broadcasts to rise up against their ‘dictator’, the Kurds of northern Iraq rebelled against a nominally defeated and certainly weakened Saddam Hussein in March of 1991. Shortly after the war ended, Kurdish rebels attacked disorganized Iraqi units and seized control of several towns in northern Iraq. From the town of Rania, this sedition spread quickly through the Kurdish north. Fear of being drawn into an Iraqi civil war and possible diplomatic repercussions precluded President Bush from committing US forces to support the Kurds. Within days Iraqi forces recovered and launched a ruthless counteroffensive including napalm and chemical attacks from helicopters. They quickly reclaimed lost territory and crushed the rebellion.

Knowing the possible repercussions of further actions by Iraq, more than one million refugees headed toward the mountains of Iran and Turkey. Conditions deteriorated rapidly as crowds grew by the hour. There was no food, shelter, or water. It was still winter in the mountains, with temperatures plunging far below freezing each night. Press reports indicated as many as 3 million people fleeing, with the Iraqi Army still in pursuit. By April 2nd over a million Kurds had fled Iraq (approx. 800,000 Kurds in Iran, 300,000 in southeastern Turkey and another 100,000 along the Turkish/Iraq border. By the first week of April, 800 to 1,000 people, mostly the very young and the very old, were dying each day.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/provide_comfort.htm

Note: I've heard Al Franken say that Hussein slaughtered 100,000's of Kurds & Shia when they rose up to overthrow Hussein after being encouraged by the US.

UN (US/UK) SANCTIONS: Primary cause of 800,000 deaths
August 1990 - March 2003

The United Nations Security Council has maintained comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq since August 6, 1990. The international community increasingly views the sanctions as illegitimate and punitive, because of well-documented humanitarian suffering in Iraq and widespread doubts about the sanctions’ effectiveness and their legal basis under international humanitarian and human rights law. (2)

It is now clear that comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq have hurt large numbers of innocent civilians not only by limiting the availability of food and medicines, but also by disrupting the whole economy, impoverishing Iraqi citizens and depriving them of essential income, and reducing the national capacity of water treatment, electrical systems and other infrastructure critical for health and life. People in Iraq have died in large numbers. The extent of death, suffering and hardship may have been greater than during the armed hostilities, especially for civilians, as we shall see in more detail below. Comprehensive sanctions in Iraq, then, are not benign, non-violent or ethical. (2)

A UN "Oil-for-Food Programme," started in late 1997, offered some relief to Iraqis, but the humanitarian crisis continued. (1)

Over a period of about five years, serving an Iraqi population of 23 million, the program has delivered roughly $200 worth of goods per capita per year, including oil spare parts and other goods not directly consumed by the population. Allowing for domestic production outside the Oil-for-Food program and for smuggling, the result still appears to leave Iraqi citizens an exceedingly low per capita income which may be at or below the $1 per day World Bank threshold of absolute poverty. (2)

The measurement of deaths rests on the concept of “excess” mortality – those deaths that exceed the mortality rate in the previous, pre-sanctions period or that exceed a projection of the earlier trend towards further gains. (2)

All of these excess deaths should not be ascribed to sanctions. Some may be due to a variety of other causes. But all major studies make it clear that sanctions have been the primary cause, because of the sanctions’ impact on food, medical care, water, and other health-related factors. (2)

Prof. Richard Garfield of Columbia University carried out a separate and well-regarded study of excess mortality in Iraq. Garfield considered the same age group and the same time period as the UNICEF study. He minimized reliance on official Iraqi statistics by using many different statistical sources, including independent surveys in Iraq and inferences from comparative public health data from other countries. Garfield concluded that there had been a minimum of 100,000 excess deaths and that the more likely number was 227,000. He compared this estimate to a maximum estimate of 66,663 civilian and military deaths during the Gulf War. Garfield now thinks the most probable number of deaths of under-five children from August 1991 to June 2002 would be about 400,000. (2)

There are no reliable estimates of the total number of excess deaths in Iraq beyond the under-five population. Even with conservative assumptions, though, the total of all excess deaths must be far above 400,000. (2)

In the face of such powerful evidence, the US and UK governments have sometimes practiced bold denial. Brian Wilson, Minister of State at the UK Foreign Office told a BBC interviewer on February 26, 2001 “There is no evidence that sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people.” When denial has proved impossible, officials have occasionally fallen back on astonishingly callous affirmations. In a famous interview with Madeleine Albright, then US representative at the United Nations, Leslie Stahl of the television show 60 Minutes said: “We have heard that half a million children have died . . . is the price worth it? Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” (2)

(1) Sanctions Against Iraq
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/indexone.htm

(2) Iraq Sanctions: Humanitarian Implications and Options for the Future
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2002/paper.htm

IRAQ WAR: March 2003 - March 2006: 250,000

A Johns Hopkins University study published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October, 2004: The Lancet estimate (usually approximated to 100,000 deaths) includes Iraqi civilians and insurgents, and includes all causes of death, whether violent or nonviolent, and whether they were caused by foreigners (such as US pilots) or by Iraqis themselves. (1)

The figure of 100,000 had been based on somewhat "conservative assumptions", notes Les Roberts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, U.S., who led the study. That estimate excludes Falluja, a hotspot for violence. If the data from this town is included, the compiled studies point to about 250,000 excess deaths since the outbreak of the U.S.-led war. (2)

Eman Ahmad Khamas is a human rights advocate who has documented abuses by the U.S. military in Iraq.... She said: "This occupation has destroyed Iraq. Americans don't know that tens of thousands of Iraqis are in prisons. Americans don't know how many have been killed. Lancet reported 100,000 in 2004, not counting Falluja. Now it is something like double this number. Hundreds of thousands of families must search for men who are missing, and they are left with nothing to support themselves. Many people do not know about the bombing of cities. Bush said the war ended on May 1, 2003. That's not true. Many Iraqi cities have been bombed severely. And families are buried in the rubble. Get the troops back home' is not enough. Yes, the occupation has to end immediately, but those responsible for these crimes have to be held responsible." (3)



(1) http://www.j-n-v.org/AW_briefings/JNV_briefing075.htm
(2) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11674.htm
(3) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2498864