VIENNA, Austria, Nov. 9, 2006
Official: 150,000 Iraqis Killed Since 2003
Iraqi Health Minister Says Three Injured For Every Person Killed Since U.S.-Led Invasion
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Iraqi fire fighters remove debris following an explosion in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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An injured Iraqi is transferred to the Kindi hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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Injured Iraqis wait for treatment at the Kindi hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
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Iraqis clean the scene following an explosion in central Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006. Bomb attacks on markets in predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad killed at last 16 people, among 38 Iraqis killed or found dead across the country on Thursday in the latest outbreak of sectarian violence. (AP)
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Battle For Iraq
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For every person killed about three have been wounded in violence since the war started in March 2003, Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari told reporters in Vienna.
The 150,000 — three times more than other estimates — was the first overall casualty figure for the war to be released by the Iraqi government, which took office on May 20.
Al-Shemari did not explain how he arrived at the figure or say whether that number included Iraqi soldiers and police, as well as civilians. Also unclear was if it included Iraqis killed in sectarian violence or only in insurgent attacks. But he said the count was of "innocent" victims, suggesting civilians only.
In October, the British medical journal The Lancet published a controversial study contending nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war — a far higher death toll than other estimates. The study, which was dismissed by President Bush and other U.S. officials as not credible, was based on interviews of households and not a body count.
Al-Shemari disputed that figure on Thursday.
"Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK," he said.
Other estimates, largely based on body counts or media reports, have held that about 50,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the conflict.
A private group called Iraqi Body Count says it has recorded between 46,863 and 51,698 Iraqi civilians killed by military intervention in Iraq. The group says that includes civilian deaths due to U.S.-led military action as well as insurgents and other violence.
Al-Shemari, a Shiite ally of anti-U.S. radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr whose militia has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence, focused on insurgent attacks, saying they were exhausting his ministry's finances and that hospitals needed aid.
"We need help, we need donations," he said.
Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings.
In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency.
In other Iraq news:
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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When not killing each other (targets of opportunity), the Dems and Repubs, our version of Sunni and *****, would be gunning for Lilliputians and their supporters in an effort to repel the invaders.
That's the position we've put the Iraqi's in... they are defending their country and engaging in a civil war at the same time because we took away that which they feared or respected most (Saddam) and installed a puppet government in its place... which is not acceptable to either faction.
You can't tell me you wouldn't do the same thing if you were in their position.
Secular warfare and death squads are to blame for all of the torture deaths and civilian casualties piling up in Iraq now. It is not the fault of the coalition forces that Muslims enjoy killing each other so much in the name of Allah.
Any idiot can blame Bush but many countries are involved in the coalition effort, and Iraqis obviously have more desire to kill each other than to live peacefully with each other. When most of the people revere moronic demagogues like Muqtada al-Sadr, this is what you get. Blame ignorance, poverty, lack of education and most of all Islamic Stone Age religion for perpetrating the tragedy that has evolved in Iraq.
Selah
One poster speculates a high number of the "civilian" dead were armed insurgents, but I suspect he already knows it is impossible to establish that figure. While *some* of the dead probably were insurgents, it is certain the victims include police, army and rescue workers, and a host of nameless civilians in the fullest sense, who never planned to be in the line of fire. To say that some of the 150,000 must have been insurgents is pointless because it is impossible to quantify, and doesn't alter the tragic toll in the slightest.
Compared with 911, or the current toll of US combat dead, the 150,000 figure is a truly horrific carnage that need never have happened had (1) the Iraqi army not been totally disbanded (2) Rumsfeld awakened from his hubris, remembering a Gen. Eric Shinseki who estimated in 2003 several hundred thousand US troops would be required to provide both security and a civilian support infrastructure.
Bob_Burd said, "Any idiot can blame Bush ... "
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As you admit, if even an idiot knows Bush has brought America a disaster, what does that say about the mentality of bunker-hugging GOP bozos, vainly waiting for the cavalry to arrive in Iraq?
"Blame ignorance, poverty, lack of education and most of all Islamic Stone Age religion for perpetrating the tragedy that has evolved in Iraq."
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Not so fast-- you apparently know little about Islam or its variants, and to charcterize all Muslims by a segment is like a Muslim speaking of Christianity as the "worship of crosses" and routine barbaric cruelties against Iraqis-- at least some of whom are Christian, also.
Iraqis were at peace when the Bush2 invasion began. So, you want to talk about idiots? Even Bush1 had the sense to avoid leaving a power vacuum in Iraq because he understood it invited the instability we see now, daily.
And now, after Bush2 has become a public spectacle for his discredited policies and outright corruption, you speak of Iraqi faults? Buried in the Bush regime are neocon circles whose Stone Age politics not merely perpetuates Iraq, but helped create it in the first place- all with a deceitful and discredited argument to Americans about "patriotism".
History will tell you over and over that you don't beat a people like that. We could not in Nam, Russia gave up in Afganistan and the day we leave Iraq you will see muslims firing AK47s in the air on the six o'clock news. This war was a mistake from day 1.
How to get out I don't know, we can't just leave but we sure as hell ought to get our guys at least out of the line of fire!
To us they're insurgents or guerillas or whatever you want to call them... to themselves, they're freedom fighters. We invaded their country, pal... we didn't liberate anything because they didn't want liberating. Now we're paying the toll... our troops are, anyway, and that's the shame of it. We should have had Bush and Saddam face off with knives and let the last man standing be declared the winner.
"The inconsistent American record on promoting freedom and democracy in the Middle East has left Arab democracy activists in the awkward position of shunning any associations with the United States, because Washington's policies are so widely opposed throughout the region. So the United States finds itself in the doubly awkward position of not being able to promote democracy by using its military for regime changes, and unable to connect with partners in civil society to promote democracy through peaceful means. This, too -- the immobilization of America as a credible promoter of democracy -- is a consequence of Washington's policy in Iraq."
I agree.
"Our troops belong in Iraq, maybe not in Bagdad, but in a safe area of Iraq so they can remain in a pre-deployed state to project power in the region."
Fine. But what will you say when the Iraqi government asks us to leave. "No"?
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If the weekly body bag count at Dover AFB is your argument for a successful policy, then not invading Iraq in the first place-- a country which originally posed no WMD or al Qaeda threat whatsoever-- comes out as a really brilliant strategy.
And since the Bush2 invasion of Iraq actually made it a showpiece of Islamic insurgent success-- an Iraq which NOW is an al Qaeda training base for urban warfare against the best the world's only superpower can muster-- the Bush2 prescription for Iraq becomes a policy for only military imbeciles.
Fine. But what will you say when the Iraqi government asks us to leave. "No"?
But of course! It worked in Cuba, and in Japan. we just cut off a chunk of land that is defensible and call it "Liberty Base" and stay put, FOREVER! It's just what they need to keep them from getting out of hand, and it gives us strategic locality in the region.
Afterall these people are dying in a country we are occupying for goodness sake... In Iraq we have metrics for everything... we have number crunchers & excel spreadsheets & data collection systems by the score... they enable us to calcultate, compare and project against every conceivable measure....
Yet we don't know (or wont say what we know) about the number of Iraqi's being slaughtered in this war?... the irony & contradiction is surely a bitter one... is it not the Iraqi people who we are supposed to be protecting? How do we know whether we are achieving this objective? Yet in response to research reports as to the numbers of Iraqi killed in the war the administration can only say that they are "wide of the mark"... so what is "the mark"?
The fact is that we don't count (or claim not to count) Iraqi dead because the numbers would be closer to "the mark" than we would like to admit...
The figures are not collated (or published) by the administration because they would beg the question... is this all worth it?
Yet deceit is a double edged sword... the administrations failure to provide... even proxy numbers of Iraqi dead implies that in reality the life of an Iraqi is not worth that much to America... perhaps in the same way that the life of a Palestinian seems to be worth nothing either...
The guilt of this administration is unique in its enormity..
Please do not compare Iraq to Viet Nam, Viet Nam was a political struggle between the US and China as displayed of military tatics. It was a "war" to generate the economy, it worked at a very high price.
There is no super-power backing the insurgents, no governments even acknowledge support. This is only mirroring Viet Nam because we are fighting by the same political rules we did back then. Also noteworthy, as more foreign fighters enter Iraq for this epic battle, fewer are alive to bring the fight to the US. Consider that part of the failed military stratagy.
I am saddened by the 150,000 deaths over 3 years. A very high number for a country enduring both a national & civil war. On the bright side, it's about half the number that died each year under the previous government. Please always keep in mind, the "invasion of Iraq" was about protecting the US and her allies from a dictator who used WMD on his own people to maitain control. He used death squads to inflict terror, problably the same ones now roaming the streets today.
How much terrorism, murder, rape and kidnapping would his Baath Party and militias have perpetrated by now? In Iraq and around the world? Oh....but that's all just hypothetical.
Like the number 150,000. Pull all the soldiers out of the cities and put them safely away in their bases for two weeks and watch the Iraqis eat themselves. Their real mentality and violent culture would be immediately exposed for what it is.
These violent muslims, who were held for decades under the iron fist of Saddam, have only reverted to their true nature once the iron fist was lifted. Saddam is gone, and it's not up to coalition forces to teach violent muslims how to act like human beings. Withdraw for a while and watch them beg for the coalition forces to return.
Selah
Selah
John Donne said it all:
SEND NOT TO KNOW
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS:
IT TOLLD FOR THEE.
What we need is a reliable estimate of how many Iraq citizens have been killed suicide bombers.
Correction:
What we need to know is How many Iraq citizens have been killed BY suicide bombers?
Our government has an selective political agenda, they choose those countries, in which the American capitalists have to most go gain.
They don't legitimately seek out to democratized countries under authoritarian rule for the sake of creating democracy, but for self-aggrandizement.
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by feelfree1
November 12, 2006 4:52 PM PST
- Why would CBS present the unsubstantiated words of an Iraqi puppet official as news?
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See all 37 CommentsThe number of innocent Iraqis killed so far has been most reliably estimated at around 655,000. More than 200,000 of those are attributed directly to U.S. military killings.
Of course, every single excess violent death in Iraq since the illegal 2003 invasion is the responsibility of the Bush regime and their collaborators. Credible estimates by a scientific study place the Bush Butchers' bill as high as nearly one million people.
The Bush regime have possibly killed more Iraqis in just a few short years, than Saddam was able to accomplish over decades. I look forward to the day when the Bush Butchers and their collaborators are brought to justice.
Many convicted Nazis were hung as punishment for doing very similar acts to what the Bush fascists have done.