They say he claimed high rates of child malnutrition during the sanctions period without giving data from the pre-sanctions period by which they could be measured. They allege he and his interviewers for the Baltimore study worked "under brutal political pressure" at a time when the health ministry was under the control of Moqtada al-Sadr, the anti-occupation Shia religious leader. They say Lafta had little supervision and has rarely appeared in public or been interviewed.
He presented his study to an off-the-record meeting of experts in Geneva last May but none of the attendees has agreed to describe his remarks. He refused to respond to emailed questions from the National Journal. The Baltimore study's authors have declined to provide the interviewers' reports and questionnaires, a non-transparency issue which also worries the IBC researchers. Responding to the criticism that it was impossible to visit so many homes in a day, the researchers said in earlier Guardian interviews that most visits were terminated after the first question - if the household did not register any deaths.
In a long reply to the National Journal recently released on their website www. He has frequently worked with other international groups since and "asked that he not be contacted by the media out of concern for his safety and that of his family, a not unreasonable request in Iraq where doctors and academics are major assassination targets".
On the alleged speed of the interviewers' work, the Baltimore people say most houses were in walled compounds and doorstep interviews were "judged to be the best survey techniques from the point of security and cultural acceptability". They say the interviewers' data with names and addresses cannot be released for fear of endangering the families. As for the funders' political views, they say this is irrelevant since the interviewers were not told who the funders were.
Finally, they point out that more recent data confirm their findings and even suggest a higher figure. Using the census total of 4,, households in Iraq, this suggests 1,, deaths since the invasion. Accounting for a standard margin of error, ORB says, "We believe the range is a minimum of , to a maximum of 1,, Frederick "Skip" Burkle is a professor in the department of public health and epidemiology at Harvard University who ran Iraq's ministry of health after the war but was sacked by the US and replaced by a Bush loyalist.
He says the survey ignored the occupation's indirect or secondary casualties - deaths caused by the destruction of health services, unemployment and lack of electricity. Two surveys by non-government organisations found a rise in infant mortality and malnutrition, he notes, so why are those figures not reflected in the second study that appeared in the Lancet? The controversy will clearly run and run, probably long after the Iraq war eventually ends.
One thing is certain, and it provides no comfort for Bush, Blair and other occupation supporters. They continue to claim that, whatever errors may have been committed since the invasion, the judgment of history will be that the toppling of a brutal dictatorship was an unmitigated benefit. That alone means the invasion was a blessing for the people of Iraq.
Alas for Bush and Blair, most statisticians do not support their case. Nor can any journalist or other independent witness who has seen the pain of the bereaved still living in post-invasion Iraq or the millions who have escaped to Jordan and Syria. Estimates of the Iraqi deaths caused by Saddam's regime amount to a maximum of one million over a year period , Kurds in the Anfal campaign in the s; , in the war against Iran; , Shias in the suppressed uprising of ; and an unknown number executed in his prisons and torture chambers.
Averaged over his time in power, the annual rate does not exceed 29, Only the conservatively calculated Iraq Body Count death toll credits the occupation with an average annual rate that is less than that - some 18, deaths in the five years so far. Every other source, from the WHO to the surveys of Iraqi households, puts the average well above the Saddam-era figure.
Those who claim Saddam's toppling made life safer for Iraqis have a lot of explaining to do. Monday March 10 - 34 dead Including Dr Khalid Nasir, the only neurosurgeon in Basra; sheikh Thair Ibrahim and his five-year-old niece, killed by a female suicide bomber; 10 people killed by a suicide bomber; and a mother and son killed by gunmen. Tuesday March 11 - 90 dead Including a couple kidnapped the week before; 16 members of a family returning from a funeral, killed by a roadside bomb; three killed in a US air strike; and 20 people whose bodies were found in a mass grave.
Wednesday March 12 - 24 dead Including a year-old girl killed by US forces; five shot and beheaded at a checkpoint; and three truck drivers killed in a roadside bomb. Thursday March 13 - 39 dead Including a journalist killed by gunmen; 18 people killed by a car bomb in Baghdad; a year-old girl shot dead by police; and Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho.
Friday March 14 - 15 dead Including ex-footballer Munther Khalaf, killed outside his home by a group of armed men; a street sweeper killed by a roadside bomb; an Iraqi interpreter, killed by a suicide bomber; and the son of the chief of al-Kharaj tribes, killed during a raid by joint forces.
Sunday March 16 - 26 dead Including two policemen killed in an armed assault and 16 others whose bodies were found, including that of an year-old boy. In the article above we originally said that Madelyn Hicks was affiliated to the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. This was wrong; she is in fact affiliated to the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and was so at the time of her paper's posting.
After the first Gulf War, in the south, up to Shia Marsh Arabs were killed between March and October and the marshlands between Euphrates and Tigris were drained to eliminate the hiding places for many Shia during and after the uprising [ Security situation , 1. Support is our mission. However, we know that between , and , civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the U. The violent deaths of Iraqi civilians have occurred through aerial bombing, shelling, gunshots, suicide attacks, and fires started by bombing.
Many civilians have also been injured. Politicians remained largely mute — as did Iraqi media. In the south of Iraq, the US invasion which ousted Saddam Hussein — but left carnage in its wake — is largely seen as a disaster for the country.
More than , Iraqi citizens died. Millions more left.
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