Over Easter, The Independent carried a startling news story. On 19 March, the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, it said that 1,033,000 people had died, by implication as a result. That, surely, would be important if true. Yet all it said, in a graphic across the top of pages 2 and 3, which is not on the internet version of the newspaper, was that this was the number of “civilians thought to have died, according to January survey by polling company Opinion Research Business”.
If a million people have died in violence in Iraq since the invasion, you might have thought this shocking enough for The Independent, or any other national newspaper, to report it when the survey was published in January. But there was nothing in the British press at all.
Indeed, you might have thought the Opinion Research Business survey important enough to have been reported in October, when its first estimate was that 1.2m had died since the invasion. That was reported only in The Observer, in an article about something else (although it was changed in a later edition, again not on the internet, to a story headed “Iraq conflict has cost 1.2 million lives, claims civilian survey”).
What happened in January was that, after criticism of its survey, Opinion Research Business carried out further interviews in rural areas and revised its estimate to the figure given above. This was not reported in the British press until 19 March, when The Independent used it prominently and without further comment on page 2, and The Guardian mentioned it in an article about the disputes over estimated death tolls ranging from 100,000 to 1m, again without discussion.
It is surprising, to put it gently, that the question of whether or not the 1 million figure is right arouses such little interest. One group that is certainly not interested is the absolutist opponents of the invasion, whose representatives will no doubt soon appear in the Comments below. For them, 1 million is a fact – indeed, it is an under-estimate – regardless of the evidence. Just as the invasion was a “crime” based on “lies”, so the minimum death toll is the highest number that any remotely authoritative source has ever come up with. For some time that was The Lancet’s 655,000, and never mind that 54,000 of that was heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses, or that the survey methods had been challenged. Yet those who are interested in the truth of this troubling matter are surely under some kind of obligation to examine the evidence, even when it is so out of line with other, more authoritative, estimates of casualties, such as the World Health Organisation’s recent figure of 151,000.
I do not dismiss opinion polls in Iraq. On the contrary, they are usually important evidence that the situation in the country is not as bad as the absolutists want to believe. Among the most important is the finding that a consistent and emphatic majority of Iraqis say that, "thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the US-Britain invasion", they "personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it". But I cannot have it both ways. I cannot point to polls such as that commissioned by the BBC and others, which found 54 per cent said that, overall, things were very or quite good "in your life these days" and then ignore ones such as that conducted by Opinion Research Business that appear to contradict it.
But I would like to know why the 1m death toll has been so little reported. I cannot find any expert discussion of its methodology on the internet. I can only observe that Munqith Daghir, whose company carried out the survey, is hardly impartial. He said, in Research, the journal of the Market Research Society, in January 2006, describing why he set up his opinion polling business in Iraq in April 2003: "We had an obligation: if we really wanted to oppose what was happening, we should have our voice heard all over the world." Just as several of those involved in The Lancet research, including the editor of the journal, Richard Horton, are anti-war activists.
If anyone has any information, let me know. It may be that the 1 million figure lay behind John Humphrys's extraordinary assertion, on behalf of the impartial BBC's licence-payers, to Jack Straw on the Today programme on 25 March that "many more people have died since the war than died under Saddam Hussein".
Milan Kundera wrote in The Curtain:
Beyond the slender margin of the incontestable (there is no doubt that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo), stretches an infinite realm: the realm of the approximate, the invented, the deformed, the simplistic, the exaggerated, the misinformed, an infinite realm of non-truths that copulate, multiply like rats, and become immortal.
But we can still try to distinguish truth from myth.
What's surprising about the 1 million casaulty number? Such a number was reported a few months ago:
"On Friday, September 14, 2007, ORB (Opinion Research Business), an independent polling agency located in London, published estimates of the total war casualties in Iraq since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.[1] At over 1.2 million deaths (1,220,580), this estimate is the highest number published so far, outnumbering even the death toll of the recent Rwandan genocide.[2] From the poll margin of error of +/-2.5% ORB calculated a range of 733,158 to 1,446,063 deaths. The ORB estimate was performed by a random survey of 1,720 adults aged 18+, out of which 1,499 responded, in fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq, between August 12 and August 19, 2007."
When this study was initially reported, no major US newspaper carried this study save the Los Angeles Times. So this is a perfect parallel to the situation in the UK.
Another interesting aspect of the ORB estimates is that whenever I have posted that study on fairly liberal sites such as The Huffungton Post, my posts have mysteriously vanished (all posts are moderated, or censored, if you prefer).
Such is the fate of unwelcome information in the "Home of the Brave and the Land of the Brave."
The UK seems no less unwelcoming of unpleasant realities.
Posted by: Just_Observing | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 12:22 AM
"Yet those who are interested in the truth of this troubling matter are surely under some kind of obligation to examine the evidence"
They're NOT interested in the truth. On the contrary, they hope for as much death and carnage in Iraq as possible. All the while they call Bush the bloodthirsty warmonger? Heh. They should take a look in a mirror.
Posted by: No1Dad | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 03:21 AM
Does anyone really buy that a million people have died in Iraq?
Just to illustrate the ridiculousness of this loaded "death toll" -- it means that in the 1,825 days since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, 548 civilians have been blown away by the terrorists EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!
It's stunning that people are this stupid on this point.
Posted by: Space Cowboy | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 08:11 AM
OK Space Cowboy, give us your figures and let us know just how you worked them out.
Until such time as the US and UK government can come up with verifiable figures then I accept those put forward by the Lancet. Especially as "best practice", with verifiable methods were used to collect and collate the data.
Obviously the governments of both our countries want us to believe their propoganda that only a handful of Iraqis have died. Now their problem is they don't count Iraqi deaths as they are irrelevant, which means they don't care how many die as long as we never find out the truth.
Now as this no longer a war but an occupation where we are the enemy. Therefore to maintain our grip on the population and to beat them into submission we have to always react to any given sign of resistance whether passive or active. This means that for any one act of agression against the occupying armies by the populace we have to react tenfold to a hunderedfold until they get the message that resistance is useless.
It's standard operating procedure used by Napoleon in the Peninsula, Hitler in Occupied Europe and Stalin in the Soviet Union. We are just another Master Race in a long line of Master Races
Posted by: flipped | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 09:27 AM
Sir
Is this topic not too late for those who are already in the boxes and those whose shoes etc we saw on the streets? Is the topic good now when you splashed the beautiful of legs of Sarkozy, the president of France, said,”Wee monsieur, me I am all ready to send the troops to help NATO, No? They need help. Yes? So, you Mr. Defense Secretary, and Mr. Speaker (I never see any there), you fret not. You keep your there yes. I send more rations with the troops. I am told they are short of fags, la lla lla the cigarettes I mean, you know. They are fed up also. Yes? They need the morals boost. I give. You take. Okay. How is that idea? Yes. Okay? You like? My wife like too. The Iraq war bad I know, but we are in it, no? So we swim together the tunnel, I mean the Chunnel. Yes?
I thank you
Firozali Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa
Posted by: Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 09:28 AM
Does it really matter if it is half a million or a million? The US in particular, has been loathe to publish any figures, and puts the estimate at around 100000 dead - this is a ridiculous figure. As for the likes of SpaceCowboy "blown away by the terrorists EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!", do you think that all deaths are due to the "terrorists"?
Why is it, that people like yourself, fail to recognise, that we have illegally attacked another country who were no threat to us. We bombed their infrastructure, leaving them without hospitals, water, power, schools - do you not think that this has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths?
What about the original "shock and awe" assault - how many died there?
What about the attack on Fallujah?
The insurgency has been a direct result of our attack on Iraq - Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before we attacked them.
There were daily attacks by Sunni militant groups on the mosque at Karbala, these regularly claimed a 100 or more victims. Are you telling me, that a country the size of Iraq could not have seen hundreds of violent deaths a day?
As for No1dad, I think you ought to look in the mirror, because if you think Bush and Blair are not bloodthirsty, you need to examine your morals and principles.
So, to sum up - we are responsible for attacking Iraq, for allowing terrorists to take over the country, for failing to provide a decent standard of living for the Iraqi people, and finally for causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens.
Posted by: AndyUK | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 09:37 AM
Does Rentoul work at the Independent because his dad's a shareholder or something?
It's hard to imagine how a talentless bigot like this got the job on any normal grounds.
Posted by: Neil McGowan | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 09:53 AM
It is astonishing - but not too surprising - that John Rentoul reserves his chief criticism of the casualty figures in Iraq to war oponents. What about the Americans who steadfastly maintain "we don't do body counts". Maybe we would all have a better idea of how many people have been killed as a result of being "liberated" if the occupying ... sorry, "liberating" ... power was actually bothered to investigate how many people had met violent untimely deaths. Why aren't the pro-war people interested in counting Iraqi dead? In fact they don't seem too interested in American or British or any other dead for the matter. Which is not too surprising given that there was no "human element" in this misadventure anyway. It is all about money.
This is just another desperate postscript to Rentoul's fawning Blair bio. Sorry, John, but face it: one day someone is going to write a really good book about Blair that will erase all your efforts to beatify him.
Posted by: Jim | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 10:50 AM
Well it was good enough our imperial leaders Bush and Blair to choose to believe in WMD and invade Iraq despite crdible evidence to the contrary.
Why now challenge 'the people' now on what they choose to believe, and on what basis.
'Try and distinguish truth from myth'? - why bother, the government and media clearly don't.
In the meantime I choose to believe a million people or more have been killed in Iraq, and Britain and America are primarily responsible for that.
Posted by: bluecard | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 11:02 AM
John Rentoul asks why heart attacks and strokes should be counted. That's fairly obvious, if you are less biased than he apparently is. Suppose a jet aircraft suddenly appears over your home, drops a huge bomb, and flies away. The bomb lands near your house, knocking it down and killing your wife, children, and aged parents. You survive solely because you were visiting a neighbour. A few days or weeks later, you die of a stroke or heart attack. Would anyone believe your death was not caused by the attack, just as much as those of your family? The deaths counted are defined as "excess deaths" - i.e. deaths in excess of what would have been expected had the invasion not taken place. A child who dies of cholera because the clean water supply was blown up or polluted, or a teacher whose car crashes while desperately trying to avoid a deadly roadblock, are equally "collateral damage". That Rentoul and his kind do not relish the idea of being responsible for a million dead people in no way makes the fact less true.
Posted by: Tom Welsh | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 11:08 AM
The entire article is simply a gutless warmonger's shallow attempt to distance himself and his master from the bloody tally of his conniving. In his nightmares Rentoul is haunted by the souls of a million+ innocent victims of his viciousness, vindictiveness, and spineless promotion of a yankee war. I hope his soul burns in Hell.
Posted by: Neil McGowan | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 11:27 AM
What exactly is upsetting Rentoul - the fact that the poll hasn't been well reported, the fact that doesn't agree with other body counts, or the fact that it came up with a higher figure for deaths than he likes? To take these in order, there are all sorts of reasons why the poll might not have been reported: papers are bored with the war or think their readers are, it doesn't fit with the narrative (recently disturbed) that the surge is working and things improving. As far as the figure goes, the site Rentoul sends people to is now suggesting a range for deaths of from 730,000 - 1.4 million. And it's methodology is clear. The organisation contacted Iraquis and asked if anyone in their household had died as a result of the war. Is the figure correct? Well, it's a poll, so it will be right as far as it goes but subject to potential biases of various kinds. As the organisation involved says, it only got responses from 1,500 people and Iraq is a big place, so you have to make a decision about how to scale up the results - especially as some places have been far more affected than others. And there's an element of opinion: perhaps some of the people who died violently in car accidents would have done so, war or not. On the other hand, we get polls reported in the British press all the time as hard fact. Even though some of them, eg the British Crime Survey, are subject to similar caveats (the BCS only samples, only asks about personal experience and is subject to people remembering some types of incident more clearly than others). Why do the figures vary so much? Rentoul's answer is that it's all down to the opponents of the war pushing for a high result. But, more mundanely, it may be down to different people counting different things. This poll looks at reported experience. The Lancet looked at excess deaths (and complaining that it shouldn't have counted heart attacks etc is bizarre - like saying that famine stats can't be relied on if they include people who died from malnutrition-related conditions and not just starvation). The WHO may have a very narrow definition (I can't get its site to load). The relevant armies don't count at all. As with crime in Britain, the politics kicks in when different groups take these figures, all of which are "true" and "not true" in different ways, and promote them for their own ends, rubbishing others in the process. If Rentoul wants to step back from that by having a sensible discussion of methodologies to help people distinguish between one count and another and the use it is being put to, then fine. Let's have this kind of background and context every time a poll is published or a survey is reported in a paper. What he can't do, though, is then claim that one number is true and another a myth, when one magically supports his world view and another doesn't. At least without facing up to his prejudices, instead of just claiming to be doing down somebody else's.
Posted by: Lyn Whitfield | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 01:41 PM
Rendel misses a point all journalists do: the five surveys of mortality in Iraq show significant congruence. The Iraq Ministry of Health survey he cites (as a WHO survey) did estimate 151,000 violent deaths, but their data also shows more than 400,000 "excess" deaths overall. Many experts see in the data tables evidence of ambiguous categories where those fearful of the Sadrist MoH interviewers would attribute deaths to "non-violent" causes. In any case, the 400,000+ as of June 2006 would translate into 600-700,000 today. The MoH also could not survey 11% of its sample, because those places were too dangerous. It demonstrates not inconsistencies between the surveys, but, more important, just how difficult it is to do such surveys in Iraq, precisely because it is so violent. As for plausibility of the high mortality figures, consider this: five murders per day in the 80 "urban centers" of Iraq (pop.>20k) would equal 730,000. The high deaths also track with what we know from many other conflicts regarding the ratio of displaced to death---that ratio is rarely more than 6-1, and there are 4.5 million Iraqis displaced from their homes. See analysis at http://mit.edu/humancostiraq
Posted by: John Tirman | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 02:47 PM
As Tom Welsh, Neil McGowan and others have rightly pointed out, this is yet another attempt by our "unbiased" British media, to try to distance ourselves from the truth.
Iraq is a disaster zone, the people have been betrayed because the West is using them like pawns in the "great game".
There is no optimism at the moment, because our leaders are not ready to engage Iraq's neighbours. I sincerely believe, that our intention is to set up another puppet regime - much like the Shah of Iran or Sadaam Hussein_- and try to control Middle East policy, from the massive bases which have been constructed.
I will go further than Neil, and say I hope that anyone who supported this illegal war burns in Hell!
Posted by: AndyUK | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 03:30 PM
'Does Rentoul work at the Independent because his dad's a shareholder or something?
It's hard to imagine how a talentless bigot like this got the job on any normal grounds.'
Those were my thought exactly. He usually writes boring gossip, often stealing from blogs. This is the closest he's come to a 'proper' article, and he shouldn't have bothered.
Posted by: Gregor | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 07:56 PM
Even if a million Iraqis were butchered by the terrorists in Iraq where is the outcry against the terrorists causing this mayhem? It's certainly not US or coalition forces blowing away innocents, is it?
Incidentally, if the 30 million Iraqis could vote tomorrow, would they vote for the US to be out or for the terrorists to be out?
Posted by: Space Cowboy | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 10:03 PM
Yeah, but you're not going to let 30m Iraqis vote tomorrow, are ya, "Space Cowboy"?? Because the so-called "democracy" you've imposed on Iraq is a sham and a farce. They want you OUT, Cowboy. The very fact you can begin a posting with "even if a million Iraqis were butchered" ought to indicate the reason why.
Posted by: Neil McGowan | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 07:47 AM
You've got to understand, Space Cowboy/Cadet still believes that it's the Iraqis who are the aggressors and that Americans are just defending themselves and their oil from them. He probably thinks Iraq is in Texas.
Posted by: flipped | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 08:59 AM
First of all, an opinion poll is not a proper way to conduct a mortality survey, so it is not trustworthy.
Secondly, most of the absolutist opponents of the war support the terrorists who are primarily responsible for these deaths, so they have zero credibility.
You can't call for troops to leave no matter what the security situation, and support the terrorists who are killing people, but then blame the death toll on Bush and Blair.
Posted by: James | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 02:25 PM
Indeed, the 1 milllion deaths propganda should be used by supporters of the war as precisely the reason why we need to stay and stop the people who are responsible for this.
Posted by: James | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 02:28 PM
You never hear people claiming that Britian "unleashed" the Nazi holocaust because it declared war on Germany. So why do they claim Britain is to blame for deaths in Iraq simply because they decided to remove Saddam Hussein?
Posted by: Jeremy | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 02:30 PM
Will Rentoul be at Westminster Cathedral to hear Bliar speak tonight if he can be heard above the noise of protest) or has he written the sermon?
Posted by: maryb | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 03:50 PM
In a war started with lies about weapons of mass destruction, even one civilian death is unacceptable.
Posted by: Michael Rivero | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 03:53 PM
JohnRentoul:
'I do not dismiss opinion polls in Iraq. On the contrary, they are usually important evidence that the situation in the country is not as bad as the absolutists want to believe'.
The polls also consistently find that Iraqis think the presence of coalition forces in Iraq only exacerbates the security situation, that violence will decrease when they leave, that they want coalition troops out within a year, that they think coalition forces have done a terrible job of managing Iraq, that they think the U.S. and U.K. are playing a negative role in Iraq, that they think attacks on coalition forces are acceptable, and that they have no confidance in coalition forces. So even if some Iraqis do say things are going okay in their lives, it's no thanks to Bush and Blair.
And, in fact, Iraqis don't consistently and emphatically say that the invasion has been 'worth it'. The one poll Rentoul cites is nearly two years old now, and the most recent ones have them saying the exact opposite. See the March 2008 ORB/Channel four poll, where only 23% said military action will prove to have been in Iraqs long term interest, and the September 2007/March 2008 BBC polls, where more Iraqis say the the invasion wasn't worth it than was.
It might also be worth noting that the Lancet estimate of 655'000 excess deaths between March 2003 and June 2006 was called 'close to best practice' and 'robust' by the M.O.D.s chief scientific advisor, who advised the government not to criticise it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6495753.stm
These are just a few of the glaring errors and misrepresentations in the article.
Posted by: Peter | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 06:34 PM
Anyone who has ever served in the US military in a military conflict knows that over 5 years with the most powerful military on Earth, way over 1 million Iraqis have been killed by this war crime.
Let me guess the chicken hawk warriors believe the same types of studies when dealing with Darfur or the Holocaust but not Iraq?
Bill Kush NOW!
Posted by: Brad | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 07:46 PM
For the sake of argument let us just suppose that the one million figure (whether cited from the ORB poll or extrapolated from the Lancet study years ago) includes all those who died of natural causes. Iraq has/d a population of about 25 million. The death of one out of every 25 or so people in half a decade is staggering. John Rentoul is a butt plug.
Posted by: Ted Stryker | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 09:32 PM
Brad (earlier comment) is obviously familiar with US forces' modus operandi. Kill everything that moves. And he has the main point at issue here with his comment about Darfur and elsewhere, Kosovo, for example. "Our" side greedily swooped on Lancet excess mortality studies done there, using the exact same peer reviewed methodology, when they supported the US/UK (Usuck) geopolitical agenda. Unfortunately for Lancet, the statistics produced in Iraq don't support the Usuk agenda. And that's all there is to it really. As for John "rent-tool" it's perfectly obvious, to any impartial observer, that a propagandist tool for rent is all that he is or ever will be. I join with those earlier commenters in wishing him and all of his ilk a long time in whatever hell haunts his sleeping and waking hours.
Posted by: Mal Lee | Friday, 04 April 2008 at 01:35 AM
Clearly it's a Big Number which no-one is precisely certain about. My impression is that it's far greater than the number of Iraqis who would have died violent deaths had Britain and the USA not offered their assistance.
As Michael Rivero said (above), even one death would be unacceptable. Just why is John Rentoul so fixated on the precise figure?
Posted by: Mark_IV | Friday, 04 April 2008 at 02:37 AM
This puerile article is clearly the product of a feeble mind. Had it been published on April 1, Mr Rentoul could, perhaps, be forgiven his poor judgement in attempting to perpetuate grotesquely offensive lies about the cowardly and unjustified mass murder of Iraqis.
Posted by: N Maydom | Friday, 04 April 2008 at 07:13 PM
I can't believe that a published journalist could write such fallacies.
Is he expecting us to believe the grotesque lies of Bush and Blair which lead us into this war? Please tel us where the WMD went?
Is Rentoul going to go and live in Basra and preach his nonsense there?
Posted by: Jonathan Smith | Thursday, 10 April 2008 at 04:52 AM
Rentoul's diatribe is yet another lame apology seeking to justify the shear obscenity of this 'enterprise' - for it is an enterprise, of conquest, subjugation, degradation and plunder. In so far as any notion of moral equivalence can be invoked, there absolutely is none; the invasion of Iraq is an illegal act of aggression against a sovereign nation state. Every single Iraqi who has suffered as its direct consequence, constitutes a defacto instance of a 'war crime'. Whatever the numbers, the wholesale slaughter of Iraqi inhabitants whether in their 10,000s or 100,000s constitutes 'mass murder'. In any global order predicated upon any conceivable notions of international law and justice, the architects and perpetrates of such naked aggression would face commensurate charges and brought to trail. Rentoul et al are not ‘journalist’ – they would not recognise ‘journalism if it hit them at 100 mph. They are mere dime-a-dozen propagandists who peddling their perverse trade of victim dehumanisation.
Posted by: the dove | Thursday, 10 April 2008 at 08:28 PM
Rentoul does raise a number of interesting points. The first being the question of why the reporting of a million deaths has received so little attention in the media. It is much too easy and naive to claim that it is just the way the media works or that, of course, the media would not report it. Why are we not outraged that the media did not report it. Rentour at least is rather surprised. The other key issue raised by Rentoul is the validity of the survey that claims a million dead. As a statistician and as a citizen and reader of the news I would be very interested in knowing more about the methodolgy, the collection and analysis of the data of this survey, as well as a critique of it and a comparison with the prior surveys. Does anyone have a reference to such analysis?
Posted by: John Lee | Friday, 11 April 2008 at 01:08 AM
In Mr. Rentoul's article, “Truth and myth on the death toll in Iraq” and also in earlier pieces on the subject, he quite rightfully says that “the purpose of the invasion of Iraq, whatever you think of George Bush's motives, was not to kill civilians.”
But this digresses from the real point of the invasion and subsequent deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians, and a country that, according to historian Nirs Rosen in the quite important journal “Current History”, has “been destroyed, never to rise again”. Iraq is a land of ‘wreck and ruin’.
The bottom line is that no aggressing nation ever claims that it intends to kill civilians. I am sure the Russians said the same thing during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. From all accounts, the Russian media was using the same mantra that the western media uses today to justify a murderous, illegal invasion that clearly had an economic and strategic basis: that they were ‘liberators’ who aimed to create a ‘socially just society’. In effect, it is not that aggressing nations aim to kill civilians: it’s that they don’t care if they do or not. Noam Chomsky rightfully compared this to his walking to work in the morning and inadvertently killing ants by stepping on them. He said that he doesn’t intend to kill them, but in achieving a desired objective (getting to work) he probably steps on and kills a lot of them. The truth is that the Bush and Blair governments viewed Iraqi civilians in much the same light, in pursuing a war fought wholly on strategic and economic grounds. The murderous sanctions regime (1990-2003) had the same effect on Iraqi civilians. They were not intended to kill civilians, but in pursuing a political and economic agenda, our leaders knew it was a likely outcome that many innocents would die and yet they did not care. British historian Mark Curtis has described the western view of those whose interests conflict with power and privilege as ‘Unpeople’.
But why take my word for it? In the 1950s, the US State Department called the Middle East, including Iraq, the ‘Biggest material prize in history’ and a ‘source of stupendous strategic power’. Senior planners, such as George Kennan, and, more recently, Zbignieuw Brezinski claimed that any country controlling the region and its oil and natural gas supplies would have ‘veto power’ or ‘critical leverage’ over the global economy. The key is not access to oil, but control. To have one’s hand on the spigot. Is this not relevant? Why have the media continually shied away from revealing the real agenda, and instead focused on pedantics? Where is this in your discussions of the Iraq war?
The main question I would like to ask Mr. Rentoul and other mainstream journalists who peddle the same ‘truths’ is why it appears to be forbidden to apply the same, rational strategic and economic agendas to our own governments that we routinely apply to the motives of our officially designated enemies. Why is it that we are always being fed the standard line from our media that our governments are trying to promote freedom, democracy, and human rights in our foreign policy whereas it should be patently obvious that there are other agendas that are being promoted instead?
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | Wednesday, 16 April 2008 at 11:49 AM
I have to say that the million deaths figure does sound a little high to me, but I opposed the war from the start and I still do. To say that the "absolutist opponents of the war" "support terorrism" is an outright lie. The fact is though that the terrorists and criminals causing such problems in Iraq now would not have done if we had not illegally invaded their country.
Playing this sickening "Numbers game" about the deaths in Iraq is not helpful. Who cares if it was 100, 000 or 100, 000, 000? It's still too many. And we have created the biggest refugee crisis since 1948 in the middle east. It is a tragedy and would never have happened if we had not entered.
Posted by: hr b | Wednesday, 16 April 2008 at 02:32 PM
One million deaths directly and indirectly caused by the invasion and occupation is morally shocking but not historically. That's war. Yet the Americans still don't understand this. The nominal anti-war candidate Obama has never mentioned guilt or shame for the Iraqi deaths.
Ted Stryker above unfortunately disqualifies himself from the numerical discussion. He thinks "the death [including those by natural causes] of one out of every 25 or so people in half a decade is staggering." No, it is natural. Otherwise population explodes. The annual death rate in Europe is about 1%, which means one out of 20 people die in half a decade. That's life.
Thus the findings in question are very reasonably suggesting that the invasion and occupation have approximately doubled the natural Iraqi death rate. Let's quit this dirge and stop the bastards.
Posted by: Dennis Couzin | Sunday, 20 April 2008 at 07:48 PM
@spacecowboy above; author of article: "Does anyone really buy that a million people have died in Iraq? [...] It's stunning that people are this stupid on this point."
I'm not sure what number of people you'd find discomforting. 1 million is "just a statistic", whilst a single (innocent) human being is a "tragedy", to paraphrase j. stalin; if this illegal (yes!) war based on lies (where's my wmd mr. author!) killed 1,000, would that be bad? 10,000? 100,000? 1 million? 10 million? Which figure would you accept?
And from what milestone figure of genocidal achievement would you accept that it's a war crime perpetrated with your very own tax dollars?
I assume the discomfort with the 1 million figure is due to the fact that it brings us closer and closer to the nazi league of achievement (10s of millions).
Think!
Posted by: Max Stirner | Thursday, 24 April 2008 at 11:11 PM
Hutchinsons Almanac 1999 can anyone verify the information on page 15,
that the time zones for Baghdad Iraq and Buenos Aires Argentina have
been swapped around.Baghdad shows time as 21:00 and Buenos Aires shows
time as 14:00
foursgiant@msn.com
Posted by: foursgiant@msn.com | Saturday, 15 November 2008 at 02:20 PM