Jonathan Steele and Richard Norton-TaylorWednesday July 20, 2005
Guardian
Nearly 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the two years since the invasion, and four times as many died at the hands of US-led forces than suicide bombers and other insurgents, according to a detailed study of the human cost of the conflict. The survey, which calculates the toll of dead and injured since March 2003, also shows that the rate of criminal violence has risen dramatically.
According to Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group, the two independent researchers behind the study, the figures in the report should be regarded as the "baseline of the minimum number of deaths".
It has concluded that:
· At least 24,865 civilians were killed up to March 19 2005.
· 9,270 or 37% died at the hands of the Americans or other coalition forces (86 were killed by British troops, 23 by Italians, and 13 by Ukrainians). Most of these deaths are thought to have occurred during the conflict and its aftermath.
· The second largest cause of death (36%) was criminal violence.
· Anti-occupation forces have been responsible for 2,353 deaths.
· At least 50 babies up to the age of two have been killed;
· 1,281 children aged between three and 17 have also died.
Every death was verified by at least two sources before being included in the research, based on figures from Iraqi mortuaries, the Iraqi ministry of health, and media reports.
One of the many surprises in the survey is the huge surge in crime since the invasion.
The survey points to the criminal murder rate soaring 20 fold since the invasion.
"This is the big untold story," said John Sloboda of the Oxford Research Group.
"There has been a massive breakdown in law and order and almost total impunity for criminals."
The total number of deaths in the study is significantly lower than the estimated 98,000 figure in a disputed study in the medical journal The Lancet last autumn.
"The key point is that all the studies are talking about tens of thousands of additional deaths," said Prof Sloboda. He said yesterday's report provided "an absolutely firm, unshakeable baseline of the minimum number of violent deaths".
He points to an admission by the then Foreign Office minister, Bill Rammell, in a parliamentary answer on January 11: "The Ministry of Defence has not assisted the Iraqi government efforts to collate casualty numbers. We have no methodology which would allow us to produce accurate estimates".
The study shows that more than 45,000 Iraqis have been wounded since March 2003, two-thirds of them by coalition forces.
Almost twice as many civilians (11,351) died in the second year after the invasion as the first.
The report does not cover deaths of Iraqi forces in combat, but it does include deaths among policemen and recruits queuing to join the security forces in an insurgency which appears to have gathered pace in recent months.
The UK government said yesterday there was no reliable or accurate account of the number of deaths in Iraq and that people were now being killed primarily because of the insurgency.
Yesterday, the violence continued, with a Sunni member of the constitutional committee being gunned down outside a Baghdad restaurant.
The committee suspended its work yesterday after news that gunmen had killed Mijbil Issa, who was shot, with two companions, as he left a restaurant in the Karradah district of Baghdad.
Issa was among 15 Sunni Arabs added last month to a committee of parliamentarians in charge of drafting a new constitution by August 15.
The addition of the Sunnis was an attempt to reach out to the once dominant but now alienated minority that forms the backbone of the insurgency.
Two Sunni committee members have already resigned after threats from Sunni militants who violently oppose any dealings with Iraq's new political establishment.
The head of the constitutional committee, Humam Hammoudi, condemned the killing.
"The aim behind the assassination is to hinder the political process, but we will continue our work, and so will our Sunni brothers too, in drafting the constitution," he said, promising to upgrade security for all members of the commission.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 23:25 (twenty years ago)
Who is responsible for the other 14K deaths?
― 30 Bangin' Tunes That You've Already Got ... IN A DIFFERENT ORDER! (Barry Brune, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 23:55 (twenty years ago)
When did they die?
* 30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003. * Post-invasion, the number of civilians killed was almost twice as high in year two (11,351) as in year one (6,215).
Who did the killing?
* US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims. * Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims. * Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths. * Killings by anti-occupation forces, crime and unknown agents have shown a steady rise over the entire period.
18% of the killings are still unaccounted for there ... more digging through their data is required.
However, 30% of the killing happened before 1/5/03, and almost all of that was due to coalition forces, surely. That means only a small percentage (~10%) of the deaths happened at the hands of the coalition since that time.
Basically, they should be emphasizing this line:
above all else.
― 30 Bangin' Tunes That You've Already Got ... IN A DIFFERENT ORDER! (Barry Brune, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:03 (twenty years ago)
― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:07 (twenty years ago)
― jetstream willie, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:52 (twenty years ago)
― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:53 (twenty years ago)
― Dr. Glen Y. Abreu (dr g), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:54 (twenty years ago)
― jetstream willie, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:57 (twenty years ago)
please stop equating Iraq with 9/11, you're part of the problem.
― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 01:00 (twenty years ago)
― jetstream willie, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)
You're right, it's not, but that is the key conclusion of the study, not the fact that 1/3rd of the civilians have been killed by the US (the headline implies otherwise).
It's also important to note that this study, just like every other study, (such as that "Lancet" study that was cold fusion-esque in its incompetency) doesn't define what a "civilian" is.
― 30 Bangin' Tunes That You've Already Got ... IN A DIFFERENT ORDER! (Barry Brune, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:36 (twenty years ago)
a noncombatant presumably. even if there is a portion of those numbers that represents "insurgents" killed by the coalition forces, i imagine the proportion of genuine civilians (in the sense that you might appreciate) is extremely high. so however you slice it that's many 1000s of civilians killed by us/uk/etc. forces in iraq.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:49 (twenty years ago)
civilian = noncombatant presumably
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:50 (twenty years ago)
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)
I like studies that indirectly mask all "deaths by criminal violence" as part of civilian deaths in a war and yet are vague as hell about what the difference is between a civilian/insurgent/terrorist (and the laughable "anti-occupational forces") and how many of them are among the seemingly innocent civilians. I wouldn't be surprised if they counted Saddam Hussein as a "An Iraqi civilian held by occupational forces without trial".
Only blatant propaganda would put a veil over how many innocent people are being killed by troops and not define how many were in battles with terrorists. The fact some people are clamoring about "10K innocent Iraqi deaths" proves the point that this is misleading.
Why didn't they count "Iraqi civilians who have died of natural causes" for good measure?
― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 07:06 (twenty years ago)
"One of the many surprises in the survey is the huge surge in crime since the invasion."
Fascism in Italy was proceeded by all sorts of unchecked rioting. It is the lawlessness that allowed the governments to take all power from the people in order to "protect them". Once you ditch totalitarianism (or topple any government in general) it gets bad for awhile.
Is anyone interested in looking or telling if comparable things happened in Post-War Germany?
― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 07:23 (twenty years ago)
post second world war: US bans communism and 'normalizes' ex-nazis into govt and industry; USSR imposes its own brand of totalitarianism (ie bans communism, etc).
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)
This seems quite out of proportion. Does the US really have 100x more troops there than the UK?
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 08:16 (twenty years ago)
The US carried out the vast majority of the pre-occupation bombings. This would account for the disproportionally high share of deaths attributed to them.
― Onimo (GerryNemo), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 09:07 (twenty years ago)
― Good Dog (Good Dog), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 09:56 (twenty years ago)
After months of bureaucratic wrangling, the Obama administration has disclosed its official count of civilians killed in airstrikes outside of conventional war zones: Somewhere between 64 and 116 since 2009. Strangely enough, the administration chose to release the numbers on the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend....
http://gawker.com/obama-administrations-civilian-drone-casualty-count-far-1782972107
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Friday, 1 July 2016 19:52 (nine years ago)
That's a surprisingly small number.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Friday, 1 July 2016 20:21 (nine years ago)
Not surprising at all when you count wedding parties as Al Qaeda operatives.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Friday, 1 July 2016 20:27 (nine years ago)
19 civilians died in Obama's first three days in office. Add the 44 the CIA admits to having killed in December 2009 and you pretty much have the low-ball number in three strikes.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Friday, 1 July 2016 20:32 (nine years ago)
http://www.earthunchained.com/signs-precog/
― salthigh, Friday, 1 July 2016 20:33 (nine years ago)
you seem to be overlooking the convenient "outside of conventional war zones" designation, which is v squishy
― Οὖτις, Friday, 1 July 2016 20:33 (nine years ago)
xp
Those strikes were in Pakistan and Yemen.
The definition of non-civilian is 'any military aged male who is not subsequently proven to be innocent' iirc.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Friday, 1 July 2016 20:38 (nine years ago)
Yemen not a war zone?
― Οὖτις, Friday, 1 July 2016 20:44 (nine years ago)
maybe it wasn't at the time I can't recall - seems like they've been in a perpetual state of civil war for awhile
The report excluded Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria but nowhere else.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Friday, 1 July 2016 20:46 (nine years ago)
https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/749253555605811200
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 2 July 2016 15:08 (nine years ago)
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/airstrikes-unreported-syria-iraq-afghanistan-islamic-state-al-qaeda-taliban
Another discrepancy: Though it claims to use the Air Force airstrike data, the Defense Department’s public summary of operations in Iraq and Syria, current as of Jan. 31, fails to account for nearly 6,000 strikes dating to 2014, when the air campaign against ISIS began. The most recent Air Force summary counts 23,740 coalition airstrikes through 2016. Meanwhile, the Defense Department's website lists 17,861 through Jan. 31. The Pentagon routinely cites these figures when updating the media on its operations against the Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates in Iraq and Syria.[...]There also appear to be separate policies in place regulating the specificity of information that may be publicly disclosed. Citing policy, military officials in the U.S. and in Baghdad refuse to identify the type of American warplanes that conduct individual airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, nor will they provide a breakdown of activity by individual service components.
The most recent Air Force summary counts 23,740 coalition airstrikes through 2016. Meanwhile, the Defense Department's website lists 17,861 through Jan. 31. The Pentagon routinely cites these figures when updating the media on its operations against the Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates in Iraq and Syria.
[...]
There also appear to be separate policies in place regulating the specificity of information that may be publicly disclosed. Citing policy, military officials in the U.S. and in Baghdad refuse to identify the type of American warplanes that conduct individual airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, nor will they provide a breakdown of activity by individual service components.
not that this isn't already obvious to those paying attention
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 8 February 2017 17:47 (nine years ago)