655,000 post-invasion Iraq excess deaths

I feel compelled to respond to Fady's variously dismissive and incorrect comments.

The Johns Hopkins researchers are top medical epidemiologists (at least a dozen years of high level professional training each); they are located in a top department (which recently scored a Nobel Prize) in a top US university; they are tops in their field (they established the excess deaths from the Congo conflict using the same expert methodology; they have been lavishly praised by one of Australia's top medical epidemiologists); their scientific paper was peer reviewed and published in one of the very top medical journals.

(a) the whole point of my article is that the numbers do add up; simple bald contradiction by Bush, his Australian lackey Howard, his war criminal generals or anyone else does not suffice; the estimate of 655,000 post-invasion avoidable deaths made by Dr Gilbert Burnham et al (2006) is very simlar to 3 other estimates made from 3 completely different sets of data.

(b) Western countries (or indeed any countries) should not be making omelletes of other countries; it is illegal, violates the UN Charter, is in violation of international law and also violates US law (which takes on board treaties signed by the US);

(c) The short term view according to UNICEF (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) is that in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories 0.5 million under-5 year old infants die every year, 1,300 each day and one (1) every minute - as Pamela Drew comments: "outrageous".

Those who knowingly ignore, deny, excuse, minimize, obfuscate, advocate, support or effect gross abuse of Children have crossed the line separating decent humanity from those involved in gross human rights abuse.

The long-term view according to Bush himself is minmizing the threat of terrorism to the US (although the reality is that Bush and his cronies benefit enormously from terrorism - something that may well explain their outrageous terrorism-exacerbating conduct in gross violation of both national and international interests); America's top intelligence agencies have recently concluded that the Iraq war has increased the threat to the US and the West.

By continuing the illegal Iraq War Bush and his cronies are ignoring expert US intelligence advice; exacerbating the threat to the US; ignoring expert medical epidemiologists and thus knowingly continuing both active and passive genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention; violating the US constitution; imposing a mounting cost on the US - 2,500 US soldiers killed, 20,000 wounded and an all-up cost to the US of $1-2 trillion according to US Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia; Bush's warped priorities are estimated to have caused the avoidable deaths of 0.1 million under-5 year old American infants during his Administration.

Of course by his crude, dishonest, knee-jerk repudiation of the expert Johns Hopkins report, Bush is not just simply lying (again), he is also guilty of "holocaust denial" - something that is profoundly offensive and evil and which is a criminal offence in Israel, France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Germany in relation to the Jewish Holocaust. If denial of the Jewish Holocaust is anti-Jewish anti-Semitism then Bush's flagrantly dishonest denial of the horrendous excess deaths in the Iraq War is anti-Arab anti-Semitism.

Bush is manifestly unfit for public office. How many Americans have to die (not to mention Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, whose next?) before this bizarre, world-threatening warmonger is impeached?

KingTaj- thank you for your sensible comment. In general I would agree with your suggested approach.

However there comes a point at which "excessive diplomatic politeness" (which is certainly not offered to the world's 1 billion or so Muslims by typically Islamophobe Western politicians who routinely link them to "terrorism") becomes "lying by omission".

Thus, for example, a person who deliberately goes to war on false pretexts and continues a horrendous war when his top intelligence agencies tell him it is endangering the national interests could be fairly described as a "warmonger".

If refusing service to an Arab in a restaurant is anti-Arab anti-Semitism, what do you call killing 655,000 Arabs?

Bush only permits a level of "annual per capita medical expenditure" in Iraq of US$64 as compared to US$5,711 in Occupier US - a situation that is associated with about 122,000 under-5 infant deaths per annum in Occupied Iraq (current population 27 million) as compared to 1,000 in Occupier Australia (population 20 million) (see UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) .

How do you accurately describe such actions?

Since this is a "linguistic" and "literary" question we should turn for advice to America's and the World's leading expert on linguistics, Professor Noam Chomsky who has described Bush America as the world's number one terrorist state (and that's before Bush invaded Iraq) (see his book "September 11", Allen & Unwin, Sydney 2001). He evidently still holds this view (e.g. see: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare1.com/2004/07/hegemony-or-survival-by-noam-chomsky.html ).

Since it is a "literary" or "word usage" question we could also turn to a recent Literature Nobel Laureate for his opinion. The 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature, British playwright Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech entitled "Art, Truth and Politics" (delivered by videotape on 8 December 2005; see: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm) accused US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair of war crimes in Iraq. After detailing the huge human cost of decades of violent US interventions in Central and South America, Harold Pinter described the invasion of Iraq as "an act of blatant state terrorism" and called for the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court, declaring: "How many people do you have to kill before you qualify as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought."

655,000? Much more than enough, I would have thought.

RegBarc - you quite correct to be sceptical in general and more or less correct in your statement of the methodology (except that it must be added that the 1849 households were randomly selected). These are expert medical epidemiologists, their methodology and assertions have been peer-reviewed for one of the world's top medical journals.

However in this special case there is a regime of brutal, war criminal Occupiers that (in the words of US General Tommy Franks in relation to civilian deaths) "don't do body counts") (see: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ ) and only permits a level of "annual per capita medical expenditure" in Iraq that is US$64 as compared to US$5,711 in Occupier US - a genocidal situation that is associated with about 122,000 under-5 infant deaths per annum in Occupied Iraq (current population 27 million) as compared to 1,000 in Occupier Australia (population 20 million) (see UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) .

There is some urgency to get a reasonably reliable extrapolated estimated of avoidable mortality in Iraq because on current UNICEF figures US occupation is associated with 122,000 under-5 infant deaths annually, 334 daily, 14 every hour - in 10 days the "body count" is greater than the number of people who died on 9/11.

The whole point of my article was that the estimate of 655,000 post-invasion avoidable deaths made by Dr Gilbert Burnham et al (2006) is very similar to 3 other estimates made from 3 completely different sets of data.

You will be waiting a long time for "the body count". And further, evil occurs because of good men doing nothing.

I have been a properly sceptical scientist for 4 decades and take the remarkable numerical correspondence of 4 independent estimates of post-invasion Iraq avoidable deaths from 4 separate data sets (all about 0.6 million) as grounds for urgent action for cessation of the carnage.

As a properly sceptical scientist I don't believe in Heaven and Hell but surely wish for the existence of the latter for Bush and those still supporting his thoroughly evil war policies on the basis of these 4 independent, mutually- corroborating, scientist-supplied estimates of 0.6 million post-invasion Iraqi avoidable deaths.