Disinformation

Dear AC Grayling,
Dear Alan Rusbridger, Editor
Dear Ian Mayes, Readers' editor

“Bombing civilians is not only immoral, it's ineffective” (AC Grayling, The Guardian, Monday, March 27, 2006), reads:

“No one knows how many civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The most careful assessment, by the website Iraq Body Count, estimates at least 36,000. The true figure could be three times higher.”

This is factually wrong.

IBC simply records the Iraqi civilians deaths reported in the English language media with an online website. On the IBC website, you may read: “It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media.”

“The most careful assessment” IS NOT “by the website Iraq Body Count”.

On 29 October 2004, the British medical journal The Lancet published ‘Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey’:

Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths. (Interpretation)

Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children. (Findings)

Source: Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey, The Lancet, Published online October 29,2004

The Financial Times, on November 19, 2004 wrote:

“This survey technique has been criticised as flawed, but the sampling method has been used by the same team in Darfur in Sudan and in the eastern Congo and produced credible results. An official at the World Health Organisation said the Iraq study ‘is very much in the league that the other studies are in ... You can't rubbish (the team) by saying they are incompetent‘”. (Stephen Fidler, 'Lies, damned lies and statistics,' Financial Times, November 19, 2004)

“’Les has used, and consistently uses, the best possible methodology,’ says Bradley A. Woodruff, a medical epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, the United Nations and the State Department have cited mortality numbers compiled by Mr. Roberts on previous conflicts as fact -- and have acted on those results. (...) Mr. Roberts has studied mortality caused by war since 1992, having done surveys in locations including Bosnia, Congo, and Rwanda. His three surveys in Congo for the International Rescue Committee, a nongovernmental humanitarian organization, in which he used methods akin to those of his Iraq study, received a great deal of attention. ‘Tony Blair and Colin Powell have quoted those results time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity,’ he says.” (Researchers Who Rushed Into Print a Study of Iraqi Civilian Deaths Now Wonder Why It Was Ignored, by LILA GUTERMAN, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 27, 2005)

A few weeks ago, the Independent wrote:

“But IBC admits that with the increasing inability of journalists to move around and report freely, its method of monitoring civilian deaths is becoming increasingly inaccurate. What evidence has emerged indicates that a widely ridiculed study published in The Lancet in autumn 2004, estimating that at least 100,000 civilians had died violently since the war began, might not be so inaccurate.” (“Iraq: The reckoning” , Patrick Cockburn and Raymond Whitaker , The Independent, 12 March 2006)

“The true figure could be [NOT] three times higher” than 36,000.

According to Les Roberts (Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, one of the world’s top epidemiologists and lead author of the Lancet report) there might be as many as 300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?, By Les Roberts, AlterNet, February 8, 2006)

Please, after reading the articles and the studies I am sending you, I urge you to publish a formal correction.

Hiding the truth is not only ineffective, it’s immoral.

Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini

P.S. Here some important articles regarding the Iraqi civilian deaths.

Researchers Who Rushed Into Print a Study of Iraqi Civilian Deaths Now Wonder Why It Was Ignored, by LILA GUTERMAN, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 27, 2005

When Promoting Truth Obscures the Truth: More on Iraqi Body Count and Iraqi Deaths, by Stephen Soldz, ZNet, February 05, 2006

BURYING THE LANCET - PART 1

BURYING THE LANCET - PART 2

BURYING THE LANCET – Update

Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?, By Les Roberts, AlterNet, February 8, 2006

***

Dear Ms Zamparini

Thank you for your email and the points it contains. I am a little puzzled by what you say, however, given that the figures I quote are in effect in agreement with those you quote, in the sense that whereas the very conservative estimate of civilian deaths as published by IBC is 36,000, my remark that the true figure could be three times greater (i.e. in the region of 100,000) is consistent with the Lancet estimate and the figure you take to be accurate. I do not see that there is an inconsistency between this and your view. My good wishes - Anthony Grayling

***

Dear Mr. Grayling,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I am sorry you are "a little puzzled" but what you write in your email is - again - not correct: our figures are not in agreement.

Again, in the Guardian's article, you write:

“No one knows how many civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The most careful assessment, by the website Iraq Body Count, estimates at least 36,000. The true figure could be three times higher.”

You write “The most careful assessment”. IBC is not “The most careful assessment”. IBC simply records the Iraqi civilians deaths reported in the English language media with an online website. On the IBC website, you may read: “It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media.”

Also, you write “The true figure could be three times higher.” You didn’t even mention the Lancet’s study. That study was published on 29 October 2004. According to Les Roberts (Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, one of the world’s top epidemiologists and lead author of the Lancet report) there might be as many as 300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?, By Les Roberts, AlterNet, February 8, 2006)

So, I have to insist with my remarks and ask you and the Guardian’s editors for a formal correction.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini

***

Dear Mr. Grayling,

I hope you are well.

I have not received any reply to my last email (underneath) regarding your article “Bombing civilians is not only immoral, it's ineffective”.

As a professor of moral philosophy you must understand the ethical implications of what you write.

Please, will you publish a formal correction?

Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini