2.3 million Iraqi excess deaths

Carlos Latuff/ MWC NEWS

March 20, 2009 marks the 6th anniversary of the illegal, utterly unjustified, war criminal invasion of Iraq by US, UK and Australian forces. Post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 2.3 million and refugees total 6 million in a continuing Iraqi Holocaust and Genocide.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in the 1939-1945 World War 2 conflict (that commenced with the Nazi German invasion of Poland in September 1939), the defeated Germans adopted a post-war and post-Holocaust protocol that can be summarized by the acronym CAAAA (C4A), specifically Cessation of the killing, Acknowledgment of the crimes, Apology, Amends and Assertion “never again to anyone”.

Unfortunately, unlike the Nazi Germans, the pro-Zionist, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, imperialist  war criminals of the US Alliance are comprehensively violating the 5-point CAAAA (C4A) protocol by continuing the war in Occupied Iraq; refusing to acknowledge the horrendous carnage; declining to apologize; refusing to make amends; and making it clear that they will continue and indeed expand war in Occupied Afghanistan and the North West Provinces of Pakistan.

On the occasion of this 6th Anniversary of the war criminal US Alliance invasion of Iraq, decent people ask: what has been the human cost of this unjustified and illegal war?

1. 1.3 million violent post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths.

The prestigious US organization Just Foreign Policy has a steadily updated counter that currently estimates that 1.32 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the US invasion of Iraq. In their words: “The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then ... The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency [ORB] in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US-led invasion. This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it.” [1].

2. 1.0 million non-violent post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths (non-violent avoidable deaths).

In wars and occupations people die violently (from bombs and bullets) and non-violently from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease. Non-violent excess deaths can be estimated from the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected if the country were at peace and under sensible governance. Using data from the UN Population Division (2006 Revision data) one can calculate that the non-violent post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths total 1.0 million. [2, 3].

3. 0.6 million post-invasion under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths.

UN Population Division data indicate that post-invasion under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths total 0.6 million with 90% of these deaths being avoidable. The “annual death rate” is 2.2% for Occupied Iraqi under-5 year old infants as compared to 1.6% for Occupied Palestinian under-5 year old infants, 6.5% for Occupied Afghan under-5 year old infants and 10% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 (for which crime Japanese generals were tried and hanged). [3].

4. Post-invasion Iraqi refugees total 6 million out of a population of 28 million.

According to the eminent BRussells Tribunal, the number of internal refugees within Iraq and Iraqi refugees outside Iraq total 6 million out of a total population of about 28 million.  [3, 4].

5. 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi violent and non-violent excess deaths constitute an immense war crime.

There being no justification for the invasion, the violent Iraqi deaths are clearly war crimes, and so too are the post-invasion non-violent deaths from deprivation. Thus under Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, an Occupier is obliged to supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites to the conquered subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. However, consulting the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that the “total expenditure on health per capita” in Occupied Iraq is $124 as compared to $6,714 for the occupier country, the US. [5, 6].

6. 4.2 million violent and non-violent Iraqi excess deaths and 1.8 million under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths under war and Sanctions 1990-2009.

Using UN Population Division data one can estimate that there were 1.7 million non-violent excess deaths and 1.2 million under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths under Sanctions and bombing (1990-2003). It is estimated that about 0.2 million Iraqis were killed in the Gulf War (1990-1991). Thus with 2.3 million violent and non-violent Occupied Iraqi excess deaths (2003-2009), excess deaths under Sanctions and war (1990-2009) total 1.9 million + 2.3 million = 4.2 million. Under-5 year old Iraqi infant deaths under Sanctions and war (1990-2009) total 1.2 million + 0.6 million  = 1.8 million. [2, 3].

7. 4.2 million Iraqi excess deaths (1990-2009) versus 5-6 million Jewish deaths (1941-1945).

The 4.2 million Iraqi violent and non-violent excess deaths under US Alliance Sanctions, war and occupation in the period 1990-2009 is of the same order of magnitude as the carnage of the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust. Leading historian of World War 1, World War 2, the Jewish Holocaust and Churchill, Professor Sir Martin Gilbert, has estimated that 5-6 million Jews died in the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust, with 1 in 6 dying of deprivation, out of a total population of 8.2 million Jews in Nazi-occupied European countries. [7].

8. 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi excess deaths and 6 million Iraqi refugees constitutes an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide (UN Genocide Convention).

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The 4.2 million Iraqi excess deaths (1990-2009), 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi excess deaths and 6 million Iraqi refugees certainly constitutes an Iraqi Holocaust and also an Iraqi Genocide according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention. [8].

9. US Alliance deaths in Occupied Iraq total 4,577 giving an Occupied Iraqi/Invader military death ratio of 503.

In contrast to the 2.3 million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq, US Alliance deaths in the Iraq War total 4,577, this yielding an Occupied Iraqi/Occupier military death ratio of 2.3 million/4,577 = 503 – this death ratio being about 50 times greater than the reprisals death ratio of 10 ordered by Adolph Hitler in March 1944 and executed with the Nazi murder of 335 Italian men and boys in the Ardeatine Caves Massacre in retaliation for the killing of 33 German soldiers . [9, 10].

10. US-bankrupting Iraq War accrual cost totals $3 trillion (Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz).

2001 Economics Nobel Laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist and Vice-President, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, has estimated that the Iraq War has come with an accrual cost of $3 trillion and has bankrupted the US, thus significantly contributing to the US and consequent  global financial meltdown. [11].

11. Just reparations for 2.3 million Occupied Iraqi excess deaths (at a US EPA valuation of $6.9 million per person) total $16 trillion.

The latest US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) valuation of US lives on a risk avoidance cost basis is $6.9 million per person. If we accept the great words of the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal”, then 2.3 million post-invasion excess deaths correspond to reparations of 2.3 million persons x $6.9 million /person = $15.9 trillion or about US$16 trillion. [12].

The Bush War on Terror is in reality an horrendous War on Women and Children and, more specifically, a war on Arab, Muslim, Asian and non-European Women and Children. One can estimate from UN Population Division data that annual under-5 infant deaths among America’s Muslim  “slaves”  in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories total  3,000 + 98,000 + 314,000 = 415,000, this corresponding to 415,000/0.7 = 593,000 non-violent excess deaths annually or about 50,000 per month.    In the mere 2 months after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, non-violent excess deaths of America’s “slaves” in  the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories have totalled about  100,000.

One is reminded of the late Harold Pinter’s famous Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech in which he castigated Obama’s predecessors in the War on Terror, Bush and Blair: “We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.”

As Harold Pinter says, “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought” - and  therefore it is just that Obama as well as Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.

Months ago on election night, Ralph Nader queried whether  Barack Obama would become an Uncle Sam and act in the interests of the American people  or become an Uncle Tom, and be slavishly beholden to the warmongering American Establishment. After 2 months we have our answer in blood. With 100,000 dead Muslim “slaves” under his belt already in just 2 months of his Administration, Obama can be seen more as a Simon Legree, the brutal slave owner who had poor, good Uncle Tom beaten to death in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.  The only thing that can stop the continuing active and passive mass murder in Obama’s American Empire will be resolute Sanctions and Boycotts against the US and the war criminal , democratic Nazi countries  of the US Alliance.

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[1]. Just Foreign Policy: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html  .
[2] Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007): http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya  .
[3]. UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/  .
[4]. BRussells Tribunal, Le Feyt Declaration (2008): http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ .
[5]. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm  .
[6]. WHO: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ .
[7]. Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London).
[8]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .
[9]. Coalition casualties in Iraq: http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx  . 
[10]. Ardeatine Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeatine_massacre .
[11]. Australian ABC Lateline interview with Professor Joseph Stiglitz, “Award winning economist says America has bankrupted itself with the Iraq war”: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2236161.htm .
[12]. Gideon Polya, MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23939/42/  .

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