e-mail to Stop the War Coalition RE: IBC

Dear Robin Beste, Stop the War Coalition

I hope you are well.

You know I have great esteem and respect for you and the SWC and I know your serious and tireless commitment for the cause of peace and justice.

I have read on the Media Lens message board your correspondence with Media Lens about IBC. Please, as a friend and comrade, allow me to express my point of view.

A few days ago I had an email exchange with a BBC’s journalist. I sent an email about this to IBC’s Sloboda but he didn’t reply.

Please, take a look here

IBC’s Sloboda recently wrote to Pilger:

“1. We have little confidence in the estimates based on the Lancet study and recent extrapolations, for the reasons explained. We think that the UNDP study offers a more reliable estimate for the period covered by the Lancet, and one which is not inconsistent with the type of data we have gathered. (para 6.0 a of "On IBC")

2. Thus, the Lancet is not strong evidence for a massive deficit in accounting for war deaths (although this does mean there is not any deficit - just that the Lancet doesn't show what that deficit is).”

Why “little confidence”?

“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)

“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)

This is what IBC writes in its last press release:

“Although what has been described as ‘sectarian violence’ undoubtedly contributes to a growing proportion of deaths, the last year’s total includes 370 known civilian deaths from military action by US-led forces and 2,231 from anti-occupation activity against coalition and Iraqi government targets. The post-invasion increase in criminal activity remains an important concern, but the majority of media reports do not allow a clear identification of the perpetrators or their motives. The “unknown agents” who did most of the killing could fall into any of the categories above, as well as other types of ‘terrorist.’ Reports also indicate that the past year has seen an increasing number of extra-judicial executions.” (Iraq Body Count Press Release 13, 9th March 2006)

An article published by Stars and Stripes, "a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community", reads:

BAGHDAD — There are few things Lt. Gen. Pete Chiarelli and the founders of Iraq Body Count agree on except this: In daily bombings and killings in Iraq, it is often impossible to determine who was responsible, and why.

“Today, everything that happens in Iraq is [supposedly] sectarian,” Chiarelli, the second- highest ranking general in Iraq, said last week. But some of those attacks were undoubtedly the work of al-Qaida in Iraq, he said. At the same time, “there’s a certain proportion that’s chalked up to insurgents that in reality are pure, unadulterated crime.”

Iraq Body Count — the anti-war organization whose Web site count of media-reported deaths in the country since 2003 is viewed as the most accurate and has been cited by President Bush — said much the same thing in a Thursday press release.

Iraq Body Count is thought to have the best numbers on civilian deaths, although because the figures are based mostly on media reports and not all killings are reported, they’re thought to be low. There were 12,617 civilian deaths in the third year of the occupation, according to the organization. Of those, 370 civilians were killed by U.S.-led forces and 2,231 were killed by insurgents. Who’s responsible for the remaining 10,000 is unknown. (Iraq's deadly numbers game - Nothing adds up when local officials, U.S. forces or anti-war groups try to count casualties, bombs or attacks; By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Tuesday, March 14, 2006)

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)

Shouldn’t this be the starting point of this debate?

It seems to me an indisputable fact that the warmongers have used IBC to re-write history, to neutralize the western anti-war movement and to discredit the Iraqi Resistance.

Does IBC have anything to say about this?

The refusal of IBC to answer the many questions coming from many sides is outrageous. The Iraqi civilian deaths are not private property of Iraq Body Count.

Finally, I have read many times the expressions “witch-hunt” and “attacks” to describe analyses and questions about IBC. These expressions would be hilarious if they were not used as a smokescreen to avoid a serious discussion on the specific topics and to avoid to answer questions. Using these expressions, “witch-hunt” and “attacks”, reminds me of Bush’s “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”.

For what I consider an attack (to freedom of expression), please take a look here

Yours in solidarity and struggle,
Gabriele Zamparini

P.S. I CC this email to Media Lens and to IBC because of my conviction that this should be an open debate.