October 12, 2006 6:49 AM

Mission Accomplished?

Disputed study claims 655,000 Iraqi deaths

Bush: Iraqis Willing To “Tolerate” Violence…

NEW YORK (AP) — A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates. The timing of the survey’s release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it “politics.”….In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer.

There should be little doubt that the civilian death toll from the 3 1/2-year-old war in Iraq has been immense. Accurately quantifying those deaths is a difficult- if not impossible- task, one fraught with all sorts of political consequences. This latest study is bound to ignite a firestorm on both sides of the war debate, if for no other reason than the Bush Administration has previously (and very unscientifically) tossed around numbers in the 30,000 range.

Granted, either number- 30,000 or 655,000- is far too high to be considered “acceptable”. Either number could be used to buttress the argument that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader rushed us into a war whose conduct was both poorly planned and poorly executed. Of course, those who ardently support the war in Iraq could also use the numbers to argue the insidious impact of the terrorist threat inside Iraq. This completely ignores the fact that there was no terrorist threat inside Iraq prior to the American invasion.

There are some legitimate questions about this study that need to be answered, so the results, while provovative, can hardly be taken as definitive. For one thing, it’s an extrapolation from a limited survey, so 655,000 is at best an estimate of the civilian deaths since March, 2003. How many of those deaths came as a direct or indirect result of the war is yet another question than needs to be addressed and yet probably never will be. There’s probably no definitive and authoritative way of knowing how many innocent Iraqis have died as a result of the war or the accompanying sectarian violence/civil war. Whatever the actual number is, it’s far too high. Someone (that would be Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader) has entirely too much blood on his hands.

Of course, it’s better to be fighting terrorists in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of Paducah, eh?

Today in his press conference, President Bush applauded the courage of Iraqis, stating that he is “amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they’re willing to — you know, that there’s a level of violence that they tolerate.”

Uh…I don’t think it’s so much that Iraqis are “tolerating” violence at all. More likely, they’re outgunned and terrified. How are Iraqis supposed to register any effective opposition to the sectarian violence when to do so would undoubtedly be a self-imposed death sentence? Mere self-preservation is the order of the day for Iraqis.

When you’re worrying about the simple reality of whether or not you’re going to be around to see the next sunrise, not much else really matters, does it?

In reality, 890,000 Iraqis have moved to Jordan, Iran and Syria since Hussein’s fall and more than 300,000 have fled to other parts of Iraq to escape the violence. Additionally, 71 percent of Iraqis want U.S. forces to leave Iraq within a year, saying “they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq.”

Iraqis aren’t “tolerating” the violence. They’re just trying to survive.

Indeed. Not every Iraqi can afford to leave the country, and the ones who can’t are the ones condemned to living a uniquely Iraqi version of Russian Roulette. That hardly connotes “tolerance” of violence. Iraqis are just trying to make it to tomorrow alive.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on October 12, 2006 6:49 AM.

The "Cocktober Surprise" claims another innocent victim, #3 was the previous entry in this blog.

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