back tothepoint

Over 100,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom

Compiled by Patrick Byrne

Nov. 2 (AGR) -- The first scientific study of the human cost of the Iraq war suggests that at least 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since their country was invaded in March 2003, more than half of them women and children killed in “precision” air strikes. The figures would mean 150 civilians have died each day since the conflict began. The research was carried out by the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Columbia University, and published in the British medical journal, the Lancet. The new figures are based on surveys done by the researchers in Iraq in September 2004. They compared Iraqi deaths during 14.6 months before the invasion in March 2003 and the 17.8 months after it by conducting household surveys in randomly selected neighborhoods. The study concluded that the risk of death for Iraqis was two-and-a-half times higher after coalition forces entered the country. Previous estimates based on think tank and media sources put the Iraqi civilian death toll at up to 16,053 and military fatalities as high as 6,370. Despite the claim of the former head of US Central Command General Tommy Franks, that “We don’t do body counts,” the US military does collect casualty figures in Iraq. But since 1991, when Colin Powell was head of the joint chiefs of staff, the figures have been classified to avoid the kind of controversy of Vietnam.

A limited post-war nutritional assessment carried out by UNICEF in Baghdad found that acute malnutrition has nearly doubled to what it was before the war. That assessment also found that seven out of ten children suffered from various degrees of diarrhea. Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are still being pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every day. Because water cleaning chemicals have been looted or destroyed, the quality of water in homes is extremely poor. The survey also shows that since March 2003, over 700 primary schools have been damaged by bombing, more than 200 burned and over 3,000 looted.

Talks are still taking place over whether to begin an imminent asault on Fallujah between Iyad Allawi’s interim government and a delegation from the besieged city, with the government’s main condition that the militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi be handed over. Residents of Fallujah deny any knowlege of Zarqawi and say the demand is deliberately impossible to meet. Iraq’s President Ghazi Yawer, a Sunni with a largely symbolic role in the government, has meanwhile spoken out against the government’s plans.

Since the US opened their cordon for departing families, more than 70 per cent of the population of 300,000 have left, leaving behind a city the Mujaheddin shura has declared a free Islamic emirate.

The US has 2,500 troops around Fallujah. In the battle to take Samarra last month, 3,000 US and 2,000 Iraqi government forces were needed to fight 500 insurgents. Fallujah is estimated to contain between 2,000 and 2,500 militants. US military commanders believe that a force of 10,000 is necessary to take and hold the city. In the mean time, daily air strikes continue to number in the dozens.

Prime Minister Allawi and several other top officials have accused the US military of “gross negligence” in the training and supplying of new Iraqi security forces. Officials complain that in their rush to get recruits, allowing the Bush administration to say how the security forces are being boosted, US officials are making little or no background checks. Allawi blamed this practice for instances like last week’s execution of 49 new Iraqi soldiers. The heavily-assaulted Iraqi police force, meanwhile, is operating with as little as one firearm for every five officers.

New US intelligence assessments show that the insurgents have significantly more fighters -- 8,000 to 12,000 hard-core militants -- and far greater financial resources than previously estimated. Intelligence reports indicate that new gangs specializing in hostage-taking have been entering Iraq recently. Since the start of the holy month of Ramadan two weeks ago, violence has increased by 30 percent.

Iraqi police officers and National Guardsmen fired wildly at civilians on a road south of Baghdad after insurgents attacked a US convoy on Saturday Oct. 30. The Iraqi forces shot and threw grenades at three minibuses and three vans, killing 20 people and injuring 10 others. Police also broke into the Osama bin Zayd mosque in the same area and detained its cleric and two guards.

Eight marines were killed and nine others wounded west of Baghdad when a suicide car bomb rammed into their convoy on Oct. 30, resulting in the deadliest day for the US forces since May.

A rocket attack missed a US army base and hit a hotel in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit on Oct. 31, killing 15 Iraqis and wounding others.

Fierce battles broke out in the rebel stronghold of Ramadi between US troops and Iraqi resistance fighters on Monday, Nov. 1, killing three civilians, an Iraqi journalist, and one US marine. On the previous two days, seven people, including women and children, were killed and 11 wounded in clashes. Residents said US artillery had shelled eastern districts and said there had been air strikes.

A video released by the militant group, Ansar al-Sunnah, showed eleven recently captured Iraqi soldiers being killed. Another video released featured an abducted Polish woman begging for her life, while the body of a kidnapped Japanese traveller was found beheaded in Baghdad.

The deputy governor of Baghdad, Hatim Kamil, was killed Nov. 1 when gunmen opened fire on his car in the southern Doura neighborhood. Two of his bodyguards were wounded in the attack. In the town of Baquba, north-east of Baghdad, unknown gunmen killed retired lieutenant-colonel Athir al-Khazraji.

Meanwhile, amid FBI investigations of no-bid reconstruction contracts awarded to Haliburton, the Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq.

Sources: Al-jazeera, AP, BBC, Independent(UK), New York Times, and Reuters