AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead

[zimv20]

link (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=13&u=/ap/20031210/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_civilian_casualties)


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Health Ministry officials ordered a halt to a count of civilian casualties from the war and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied that he or the U.S.-led occupation authority had anything to do with the order, and said he didn't even know about the survey of deaths, which number in the thousands.

Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department, said the order came from the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, who told her it was on behalf of Abbas. She said the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, didn't like the idea of the count either.

"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be done."

Abbas, whose secretary said he was out of the country, sent an e-mail denying the charge.

"I have no knowledge of a civilian war casualty survey even being started by the Ministry of Health, much less stopping it," he wrote. "The CPA did not direct me to stop any such survey either."

(more)

[huntsman]

This is the big, untold story of the war and occupation. There's hardly ever a mention of Iraqi casualties in the mainstream press, and no interest in counting.

A couple of nights ago a John Pilger documentary on Afghanistan/Iraq aired here, and the indifference of the American government on this matter was unmistakable. Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith wasn't interested, didn't care to investigate, doubted the figures of those who did care, basically repeated the Rumsfeld line of how careful their military is in avoiding civilian casualties, and had the interview stopped by his minder when pressed on the issue. Same story with Under Secretary of State John Bolton, who added a post-interview quip that went something like "are you a member of the Labour party... or some kind of communist?"

The moral concept underpinning it all seems to be that as long as we think our intentions and methods are good, it doesn't matter how many other people are actually killed.

[toontra]

This is the tragedy of the whole thing. We are lied to on a daily and ongoing basis, justified by war restrictions. These restrictions will never be relaxed because the phony war on terrorism is open-ended and without time/location confines. This truly is Big Brother.

We'll have a clearer idea of what actually happened (is still happening) in a few years, and no doubt there will be independent journalists who will make documentaries piecing together the worst of the single incidents which will make us ashamed to have been citizens of the nations who perpetrated them.

[wwworry]

But they are free. Isn't that what is most important?

[SPG]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm

Wonder why we don't keep track...