By Michael Schwartz, 7/5/07, originally published on AfterDowningStreet.org
A state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006
issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British medical journal)
concluded that-as of a year ago-600,000 Iraqis had died violently due
to the war in Iraq. That is, the Iraqi death rate for the first 39
months of the war was just about 15,000 per month.
That wasn’t the worst of it, because the death rate was increasing
precipitously, and during the first half of 2006 the monthly rate was
approximately 30,000 per month, a rate that no doubt has increased
further during the ferocious fighting associated with the current
American surge.
The U.S. and British governments quickly dismissed these results as
“methodologically flawed,” even though the researchers used standard
procedures for measuring mortality in war and disaster zones. (They
visited a random set of homes and asked the residents if anyone in
their household had died in the last few years, recording the details,
and inspecting death certificates in the vast majority of cases.) The
two belligerent governments offered no concrete reasons for rejecting
the study’s findings, and they ignored the fact that they had sponsored
identical studies (conducted by some of the same researchers) in other
disaster areas, including Darfur and Kosovo. The reasons for this
rejection were, however, clear enough: the results were simply too
devastating for the culpable governments to acknowledge. (Secretly the
British government later admitted that it was “a tried and tested way
to measuring mortality in conflict zones”; but it has never publicly
admitted its validity).
Reputable researchers have accepted the Lancet study’s results as
valid with virtually no dissent. Juan Cole, the most visible American
Middle East scholar, summarized it in a particularly vivid comment:
“the US misadventure in Iraq is responsible [in a little over three
years] for setting off the killing of twice as many civilians as Saddam
managed to polish off in 25 years.”
Despite the scholarly consensus, the governments” denials have been
quite effective from a public education point of view, and the few news
items that mention the Lancet stody bracket it with official rebuttals.
One BBC report, for example, mentioned the figure in an article
headlined “Huge Rise in Iraqi Death Tolls,” and quoted at length from
President Bush’s public rebuttal, in which he said that the methodology
was “pretty well discredited,” adding that “six-hundred thousand or
whatever they guessed at is just… it’s not credible.” As a
consequence of this sort of coverage, most Americans probably believe
that Bush’s December 2005 figure of 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (less
than 10% of the actual total) is the best estimate of Iraqi deaths up
to that time.
COUNTING HOW MANY IRAQIS THE OCCUPATION HAS KILLED
These shocking statistics are made all the more horrific when we
realize that among the 600,000 or so victims of Iraqi war violence, the
largest portion have been killed by the American military, not by
carbombings or death squads, or violent criminals – or even all these
groups combined.
The Lancet interviewers asked their Iraqi respondents how their
loved ones died and who was responsible. The families were very good at
the cause of death, telling the reporters that over half (56%) were due
to gunshots, with an eighth due each to car bombs(13%), air strikes
(13%) and other ordinance (14%). Only 4% were due to unknown causes.
The families were not as good at identifying who was responsible.
Although they knew, for example, that air strike victims were killed by
the occupation, and that carbomb victims were killed by insurgents, the
gunshot and ordinance fatalities often occurred in firefights or in
circumstances with no witnesses. Many times, therefore, they could not
tell for sure who was responsible. Only were certain, and the
interviewers did not record the responsible party if “households had
any uncertainly” as to who fired the death shot.
The results are nevertheless staggering for those of us who read the
American press: for the deaths that the victims families knew for sure
who the perpetrator was, U.S. forces (or their “Coalition of the
Willing” allies) were responsible for 56%. That is, we can be very
confident that the Coalition had killed at least 180,000 Iraqis by the
middle of 2006. Moreover, we have every reason to believe that the U.S.
is responsible for its pro rata share (or more) of the unattributed
deaths. That means that the U.S. and its allies may well have killed
upwards of 330,000 Iraqis by the middle of 2006.
The remainder can be attributed to the insurgents, criminals, and to
Iraqi forces. And let’s be very clear here: car bombs, the one source
that was most easy for victims” families to identify, was responsible
for 13% of the deaths, about 80,000 people, or about 2000 per month.
This is horrendous, but it is far less than half of the confirmed
American total, and less than a quarter of the probable American total.
Even if we work with the lower, confirmed, figured of 180,000 Iraqi
deaths caused by the occupation firepower, which yields an average of
just over 5,000 Iraqis killed every month by U.S. forces and our allies
since the beginning of the war. And we have to remember that the rate
of fatalities was twice as high in 2006 as the overall average, meaning
that the American average in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or
something over 300 Iraqis every day, including Sundays. With the surge
that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.
HOW COME WE DOn’t KNOW ABOUT THIS?
These figures sound impossible to most Americans. Certainly 300 Iraqis
killed by Americans each day would be headline news, over and over
again. And yet, the electronic and print media simply do not tell us
that the U.S. is killing all these people. We hear plenty about car
bombers and death squads, but little about Americans killing Iraqis,
except the occasional terrorist, and the even more occasional atrocity
story.
How, then, is the US accomplishing this carnage, and why is it not
newsworthy? The answer lies in another amazing statistic: this one
released by the U.S. military and reported by the highly respectable
Brookings Institution: for the past four years, the American military
sends out something over 1000 patrols each day into hostile
neighborhoods, looking to capture or kill insurgents and terrorists.
(Since February, the number has increased to nearly 5,000 patrols a
day, if we include the Iraqi troops participating in the American
surge.)
These thousands of patrols regularly turn into thousands of Iraqi
deaths because these patrols are not the “walk in the sun” that they
appear to be in our mind’s eye. Actually, as independent journalist Nir
Rosen described vividly and agonizingly in his indispensable book, In
the Belly of the Green Bird, they involve a kind of energetic brutality
that is only occasionally reported by an embedded American mainstream
journalist.
This brutality is all very logical, once we understand the purpose
and process of these patrols. American soldiers and marines are sent
into hostile communities where virtually the entire population is
supports the insurgency. They often have a list of suspects” addresses;
and their job is to interrorgate or arrest or kill the suspect; and
search the house for incriminating evidence, particularly arms and
ammunition, but also literature, video equipment, and other items that
the insurgency depends upon for its political and military activities.
When they don’t have lists of suspects, they conduct “house-to-house”
searches, looking for suspicious behavior, individuals or evidence.
In this context, any fighting age man is not just a suspect, but a
potentially lethal adversary. Our soldiers are told not to take any
chances: in many instances, for example, knocking on doors could invite
gunshots through the doors. Their instructions are therefore to use the
element of surprise whenever the situation appears to be dangerous-to
break down doors, shoot at anything suspicious, and throw grenades into
rooms or homes where there is any chance of resistance. If they
encounter tangible resistance, they can call in artillery and/or air
power rather than try to invade a building.
Here is how two Iraqi civilians described these patrols to Asia Times reporter Pepe Escobar:
“Hussein and Hasan confirm that the Americans usually “come at
night, sometimes by day, always protected by helicopters.” They
“sometimes bomb houses, sometimes arrest people, sometimes throw
missiles””
If they encounter no resistance, these patrols can track down 30 or
so suspects, or inspect several dozen homes, in a days work. That is,
our 1000 or so patrols can invade 30,000 homes in a single day. But if
an IED explodes under their Humvee or a sniper shoots at them from
nearby, then their job is transformed into finding, capturing, or
killing the perpetrator of the attack. Iraqi insurgents often set off
IEDs and invite these firefights, in order to stall the patrols prevent
the soldiers from forcibly entering 30 or so homes, violently accosting
their residents, and perhaps beating, arresting, or simply humiliating
the residents.
The battles triggered by IEDs and sniper attacks almost always
involve the buildings surrounding the incident, since that is where the
insurgents take cover to avoid the American counter-attack. Americans,
therefore, regular shoot into these buildings where the perpetrators
are suspected of hiding, with all the attendant dangers of killing
other people. The rules of engagement for American soldiers include
efforts to avoid killing civilians, and there are many accounts of
restraint because civilians are visibly in the line of fire. But if
they are in hot pursuit of a perpetrator, their rules of engagement
make it clear that capturing or killing the insurgent takes precedent
over civilian safety.
This sounds pretty tame, and not capable of generating the
statistics that the Lancet study documented. But the sheer quantity of
American patrols-1000 each day-and the sheer quantity of the
confrontations inside people’s homes, the responses to sniper and IED
attacks, and the ensuring firefights add up to mass slaughter.
The cumulative brutality of these thousands of patrols can be culled
from the recent inquest into the suspected war crimes committed in the
city of Haditha back in November 19, 2005. The investigation seeks to
ascertain whether American marines deliberately murdered 24 civilians
including executing with point blank head shots nineteen unarmed women,
children and older men in a single room, apparently in retribution for
the death of one of their comrades earlier in the day. These horrific
charges have made the incident newsworthy and propelled the
investigation.
But it is the defense’s version of the story that makes the Haditha
useful in understanding the translation of American patrols into
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths. First Lt. William T. Kallop, the
highest ranking officer in Haditha that day, told the military hearing
that he had ordered a patrol “to “clear” an Iraqi home in Haditha after
a roadside bomb had killed a Marine” earlier in the day. Later, after
the firefight that this action generated, he went to inspect the home
and was shocked to discover that only civilians had been killed:
“He inspected one of the homes with a Marine corporal, Hector
Salinas, and found women, children and older men who had been killed
when marines threw a grenade into the room.
“”What the hell happened, why aren’t there any insurgents here?”
Lieutenant Kallop testified that he asked aloud. “I looked at Corporal
Salinas, and he looked just as shocked as I did.”
It is important to keep in mind that Lt. Kallop would not have been
shocked if there had been one or more insurgents among the dead. What
made the situation problematic was that all the fatalities were clearly
civilians, and it led to the possibility that they had not been in hot
pursuit of an enemy combatant.
Later, however, Lt. Kallop decided that even this situation involved
no misbehavior on the part of his troops, after questioning Staff Sgt.
Frank D. Wuterich, who had led the patrol and commanded the military
action:
“Sergeant Wuterich had told him that they had killed people [in that
house] after approaching a door to it and hearing the distinct metallic
sound of an AK-47 being prepared to fire.
“”I thought that was within the rules of engagement because the squad
leader thought that he was about to kick in the door and walk into a
machine gun,” Lieutenant Kallop said.”
According to Kallop, the soldiers were thus following the rules of
engagement because if the squad leader “thought” that he was going to
be attacked (based on recognizing a noise through a closed door), he
was authorized and justified to use the full lethal force of the patrol
(in this case a hand grenade), enough to kill all the people huddled
within the apartment.
The critical distinction has to do with intentionality. First
Lieutenant Max D. Frank, sent to investigate the incident somewhat
later, explained this logic: “It was unfortunate what happened, sir,”
Lieutenant Frank told the Marine prosecutor, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan,
“but I didn’t have any reason to believe that what they had done was on
purpose.”
Translated, this means that as long as the soldiers sincerely
believed that their attack might capture or kill an armed insurgent who
could attack them, the rules of engagement justified their action and
they were therefore not culpable of any crime.
Note here that other alternatives were not considered. The soldiers
could have decided that there was a good chance of hurting civilians in
this situation, and therefore retreated without pursuing the suspected
insurgent. This would have allowed him to get away, but it would have
protected the residents of the house. This option was not considered,
even though many of us might feel that letting one or two or three
insurgents escape (in a town filled with insurgents) might be
acceptable instead of risking (and ultimately ending) the lives of 19
civilians.
Later in the hearing, Major General Richard Huck, the commanding
officer in charge of the Marines in Haditha, underscored these rules of
engagement in more general terms, -and also ignored the unthinkable
option of letting the insurgents get away-when he explained why he had
not ordered an investigation of the deaths:
“They had occurred during a combat operation and it was not uncommon
for civilians to die in such circumstances. “In my mind’s eye, I saw
insurgent fire, I saw Kilo Company fire,” Huck testified, via video
link from the Pentagon, where he is assistant deputy commandant for
plans, policies and operations. “I could see how 15 neutrals in those
circumstances could be killed.””
For General Huck, and for other commanders in Iraq, once “insurgent
fire”-or even the threat of insurgent fire-entered the picture (and it
certainly had earlier, when the American soldier was killed), then the
actions reported by the Marines in that Haditha home were not just
legitimate(if they reported them honestly), but exemplary. They were
responding appropriately in a battlefield situation, and the death of
“15 neutrals” is “not uncommon” in those circumstances.
Let’s keep in mind, then, that the United States undertakes
something over 1000 patrols each day, and lately this number has surged
to over 5000 (if we also count patrols by the Iraqi military).
According to U.S. military statistics, again reported by the Brookings
Institute, these patrols patrols currently result in just under 3000
firefights every month, or just under an average of 100 per day (not
counting the additional 25 or so involving our Iraqi allies). Most of
them do not produce 24 Iraqi deaths, but the rules of engagement our
soldiers are given-throwing hand grenades into buildings holding
suspected insurgents, using maximum firepower against snipers, and
calling in artillery and air power against stubborn
resistance-guarantee a regular drumbeat of mortality.
It is worth recording how these events are reported in the American
press, when they are noted at all. Here, for example, is an Associated
Press account of American/British patrols in Maysan province, a
stronghold of the Mahdi army:
Well to the south, Iraqi officials reported as many as 36 people
were killed in fierce overnight fighting that began as British and
Iraqi forces conducted house-to-house searches in Amarah, a stronghold
of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia.
This brief description was part of a five paragraph account of
fighting all over Iraq, part of a review under the headline “U.S. and
Iraqi forces Move on Insurgents.” It contained brief accounts of
several different operations, none of them presented as major events.
There were 100 or so engagements that day, and many of them produced
deaths. How many? Based on the Lancet article, we could guess that on
that day-and most days-the incident in Amarah represented perhaps
one-tenth of all the Iraqis killed by Americans that day. Over the
course of June, the accumulated total probably came to something over
10,000.
During the hearing about Haditha one of the investigators addressed
the larger question that emerges from the sacrifice of so many
civilians to the cause of chasing and catching insurgents in Iraq.
Lieutenant Max D. Frank, the first officer to investigate the deaths,
characterized is an “unfortunate and unintended result of local
residents” allowing insurgent fighters to use family homes to shoot at
passing American patrols.” Using a similar logic, First Lt. Adam P.
Mathes, the executive office of the company involved, argued against
issuing an apology to local residents for the incident. Mathes
advocated that instead they should issue a warning to Haditha
residents, that the incident was “an unfortunate thing that happens
when you let terrorists use your house to attack our troops.”
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines terror as “violent or
destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to
intimidate a population”.” The incident at Haditha was just such a
violent act, and was one of about 100 that day that Lt. Mathes hoped
would intimidate the population of Haditha and other towns in Iraq from
continuing to support insurgents.
__________
——————————————————————————–
[1] Lancet 061012 – Burnham et al – Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606694919/fulltext
The Lancet Early Online Publication, 12 October 2006
The Lancet DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69491-9
Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey
Prof Gilbert BurnhamMD a , Prof Riyadh LaftaMD b, Shannon DoocyPhD a and Les RobertsPhD a
[2] CBS 051212 – 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/12/politics/main1117045.shtml
Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Killed In War
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 12, 2005
(CBS/AP)
[3] DemocracyNow 061012 – Roberts – Co-author o f Medical sTudy estimating 650,000 deaths defends research http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145222
Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal
Thursday, October 12th, 2006
[4] TomDispatch 070515 – Johnson – ending the empire
Johnson, Chalmers, “Tom Graham: Chalmers Johsnon, Ending the Empire, Tom Dispatch May 15, 2007 http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=194902
[5] Cole, Juan 061011 – Cole – Hopkins Study
Informed Comment – Oct 11, 2006 http://www.juancole.com/
http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/interview-with-rajiv-chandrasekaran.html
by Juan Cole
655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion
[6] BBC 061011 – Huge rise in Iraqi death tolls.
Wednesday, 11 October 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6040054.stm
‘Huge rise’ in Iraqi death tolls
[7] CBS 051212 – 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/12/politics/main1117045.shtml
Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Killed In War
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 12, 2005
——————————————————————————–
(CBS/AP)
[8] http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf, p. 9
[9] Page 1 of 2 ROVING IN THE RED ZONE Inside Sadr City By Pepe Escobar
May 11, 2007. Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE11Ak01.html
[10] Schwartz on Haditha
[11] NYT 070509 – Zielbauer – Officer says civilian toll in Haditha was a shock
http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2007-2/20070509.htm
New York Times
May 9, 2007
Officer Says Civilian Toll in Haditha Was a Shock
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
[12] NYT 070530 – Zielbauer – Two Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/NYTimes/DefendOurMarines-NYTimesStoneHearing51707.htm
New York Times, May 31, 2007
Defend Our Marines main page
2 Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
[13] NYT 070511 – Zielbauer – US general says his staff misled him on Haditha killings
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/11/africa/11haditha.php
U.S. general says his staff misled him on Haditha killings
By Paul von Zielbauer
New York Times
Friday, May 11, 2007
[14] http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf p 7
[15] AssociatedPress 070618 – Hurst – US and Iraqi forces move on insurgent
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4900061.html
June 18, 2007, 5:56PM U.S. and Iraqi forces move on insurgents
By STEVEN R. HURST Associated Press Writer © 2007 The Associated Press
[16] NYT 070530 – Zielbauer – Two Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/NYTimes/DefendOurMarines-NYTimesStoneHearing51707.htm
New York Times, May 31, 2007
Defend Our Marines main page
2 Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER