Iraqi Death Toll

Posted by Dahlia Wasfi on Facebook:

To Whom It May Concern:

Your January 3, 2012 post, “Lest We Forget, Iraq’s Horrific Body Count” offers a final toll for the Iraq “War” (honestly, an illegal invasion and occupation) as 162,000, 79% civilian, from Iraq Body Count. This figure is horrific enough, but it is not even close to the results of accurate surveys. Iraq Body Count is a non-scientific tabulation of the dead. Accurate studies were done, published in the Lancet journal in 2004 and 2006. The estimated number of dead in 2004--more than seven years ago--was 98,000. The estimated number of dead in 2006—more than five years ago—was 654,965, and this calculation excluded the slaughters in the city of Fallujah. The British polling agency ORB put the figure at over 1,000,000 in 2007. That was more than four years ago, and the figure has only grown since then. As for using the qualifier of “civilian,” when we invade a nation that poses no threat to us; that is, when we commit the supreme crime against humanity, ALL of our victims are innocent. The very least we can do to respect the dead is acknowledge how many there are to the best of our ability. Please publish a correction.

Sincerely,
Dahlia Wasfi, M.D.