100000 dead - nothing said

[Derek McMillan]

If the entire population of Cambridge were wiped out, I imagine even the tabloids would find space on the front page to mention it. Clearly if the same number of people die as a result of the war in Iraq that is "not news".

The Americans and the Quisling government in Iraq have not bothered to count the civilian casualties in the war. However Dr Gil Burnham and his team from John Hopkins University in the US compared mortality rates in Iraq before and after the March 2003 invasion. The results published in the Lancet in the UK revealed the figure of 100000 casualties.

GIL BURNHAM (quoted on ABC): "And what we found was that mortality rates or death rates had increased substantially, and the thing that accounted for the increase in the death rates was violence."

"Much of this violence was – in fact most of it – related to the coalition forces being present, and the increased deaths were almost exclusively related to – not exclusively – but very heavily related to aerial bombardments of urban populations."

The headline in the pro-war Sun newspaper on this day? "Chelsea Sack Mutu"

[John Simkin]

You beat me to it Derek. I was appalled that this was not the lead news on the BBC news today. Instead we had a grinning Tony Blair signing the European Constitution. It only appeared as the third item on the news. Much of the time was spent on government denials that the figure was correct (they prefer a figure of 10,000). In fact, the head of the survey group believes the correct figure could be closer to 200,000. They quoted an American commander who said “we don’t do body counts”. What he meant was that they only count the deaths of their own soldiers. I wonder what percentage of those who have lost loved ones believe this was a “price worth paying” to get an American imposed "democracy".