Here in the fantasy world of America, lead by Prime Minister of Denial Bush, all signs seem to point to a rosy and upbeat picture, certainly for the near future if not for the long term.  Gas prices are going down, the stock market is once again reaching record levels and the holiday season, with its economic injection of consumer spending, is rapidly approaching.  Construction sites seem to be appearing on every corner, with tall cranes pointing skyward as if to suggest that here in America, there are no limits to economic growth.  Even in the neighborhood, the local strip mall is receiving a face-lift, apparently designed to give the impression of a medieval castle, which further adds to a surrealistic illusion.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the American Occupation continues and all signs point to a grim and grotesque picture[1].  Gas prices are going up, kerosene is in short supply[2] and, with over 60% unemployment and 70% inflation,[3] consumer spending will no doubt be down for the Islamic Festival of Breaking of the Fast, Eid Al Fitr, at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.  Debris from bombed-out buildings seems to be on every corner, as construction is sporadic to nonexistent, due to mismanagement by US firms such as Halliburton[4], KBR, SAIC and others who were awarded no-bid contracts[5].  There is no money, as a result of widespread corruption and misspending,[6] to give local markets much-needed repairs, as customers avoid shopping except when absolutely necessary for fear of being kidnapped, attacked or murdered.  There are bodies found daily in almost every city, whose mutilated appearances suggest that they have been tortured in a medieval castle.[7]  The death toll continues its upward spiral, as if to suggest that here in Iraq, there are no limits to the growth of violence.

The recently updated report by a team of US and Iraqi doctors published in the British medical journal Lancet estimates that over 655,000 Iraqis have been killed since the start of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in March of 2003.[8]  The study was done under the auspices of Johns Hopkins University and relied on door-to-door surveys rather than media reports or body counts.  The magnitude of carnage stated by the report as a result of the American occupation exceeds a caring person’s ability to contemplate without shock, horror and revulsion.  Yet Whitehouse resident statistician Bush calmly and authoritatively has proclaimed that the Lancet report is not credible, as the statistical method used has been discredited. Bush believes that a more accurate figure is 30,000 dead and he is standing by that figure.[9]   

The Iraq Body Count website, whose estimates are based on two confirmed media reports of a death, displayed a lower casualty estimate of about 43,950 people as of 13 October 2006.  Considering that the estimates of other reputable sources differ from the Lancet report by an order of magnitude as well, how can we account for this discrepancy?  A clue lies in the report itself.

”Between 1960 and 1990, newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years of highest violence.”[10]

As violence and killing increase within a country, the ability of the press to function and report on news decreases.  For example, due to the escalating violence in Iraq and the risk of injury or death by correspondents,[11] fewer and fewer of them are able to pursue news leads and more and more choose to remain in the relative safety of the “Green Zone.”[12]  As a result, as violence goes up, fewer deaths are reported and increasingly more are missed.

In an essay from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies, the author, epidemiologist and Johns Hopkins lecturer Dr. Les Roberts, states that the figures reported by the American Press are low perhaps by a factor of 5 to 10.[13]  This statement gives another clue to the discrepancy between the Lancet report and other reputable sources.  The government perpetrating the violence, or the installed puppet government, attempts to control the press and influence it to suppress news unfavorable to it, resulting in the under-reporting of civilian deaths.  For example, the US embeds correspondents with its army units,[14] which greatly restricts independent and impartial reporting, since the US Army has control of what the reporters see and hear.  Another approach is for the government to arrest and detain journalists in order to discourage reporting that would be deemed unfavorable to the occupying power.[15]

To see how much under-reporting of deaths can effect perception, consider the following example using Iraq Body Count data and making assumptions about percentages of deaths reported.  An Iraq Body Count report estimated that the number of civilian deaths as of 19 March 2005 was 24,865.[16]  From the start of the US invasion on 20 March 2003 to 19 March 2005, let us conservatively assume that the media reported 50% of the deaths. From 20 March 2005 to 13 October 2006, some 19,085 human beings must have been killed, since about 43,950 people had been killed as of the latter date.  Let us further assume that the media reported only 5% of the deaths from 20 March 2005 to 13 October 2006, corresponding to a period of increasing violence.  From the Iraq Body Count data and these reasonable assumptions, we can then infer that over 431,000 people died (see Table 1.)  Note that this estimate is above the minimum figure cited by the report in Lancet, which is 392,979 deaths.   So while on the surface, it seems that the Iraq Body Count and Lancet data differ greatly, upon closer examination, they are very close.   In any event, both sources are pointing to a bloodbath in Iraq of horrific proportions.

Despite attempts by the US Ministry of Denial to portray a positive picture in Iraq,[17] the situation there continues to deteriorate.[18]  More and more people are being killed, human services continue to decline and the US occupation continues with no sign of withdrawal.  It seems that the US policy is really one of genocide[19] as there is no apparent concern over the loss of human life caused by the occupation, beyond manipulating the death count for propaganda purposes.  The reality is that the US is in Iraq for cold and hard geo-political reasons and not because of any humanitarian concern for the Iraqi people.

Yuram

2006-10-23

TABLE 1 – EXTRAPOLATION OF DEATHS FROM IRAQ BODY COUNT DATA

[7] Haifa Zangana, They must go, and soon, Al-Ahram,19-25 Oct 2006

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/817/re11.htm

[17] Report to Congress, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, 29 Aug 2006

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/documents/Iraq/Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf

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