Normalising the unthinkable - an email exchange with the BBC

Dear Paul Reynolds,
World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website

I hope you are well.

In “Iraq three years on: A bleak tale” (By Paul Reynolds, World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website, Friday, 17 March 2006), you write:

“By now, according to the plan, Iraq should have emerged into a peaceful, stable representative democracy, an example to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East.”

Besides that that “plan” started with the international crime of a war of aggression of a sovereign country, described by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.” - I would like to ask you: How do you know that “according to the plan, Iraq should have emerged into a peaceful, stable representative democracy, an example to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East.” ?

Do you write that because it’s what Bush and Blair have repeatedly said? If so, shouldn’t have you said that that was Bush and Blair’s claim? As it was their claim that Iraq had WMD and that those WMD posed an imminent threat for the US, the UK and the international security, remember?

Also you write:

“Thousands of people have died (the true number of Iraqi deaths is not known and even the Iraqi body count figure of somewhere in the mid 30,000s is criticised as a possible underestimate).”

A few days ago, the Independent wrote:

“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 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)

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)

QUESTION: Why didn’t you mention this study?

Thank you for your time and I look forward for your comments.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini


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Dear Gabriele

I too hope that you are well.

1. Whatever the origins of the invasion, the stated plan was to develop in Iraq a representative government. My piece looked at whether this had been achieved.

2. I said that the Iraqi casualties are not known. INor are they. will however add in a reference to the Lancet report in the interests of greater clarity.

Thank you in turn for your time

Paul


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Dear Paul,

Thank you for your reply and for the correction to the website’s article.

You have added: “The British medical journal The Lancet suggested a figure of about 100,000.”

Here it’s what that study says:

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

Please, for the sake of clarity and for the importance of the matter, could you these lines by quoting them and put a link to the Lancet study? It would help many people to have a better idea. Also, it would help if you could add the date of publication: 29 October 2004

About the other point (and I really hope you don’t think I abuse of your time)

You write in your email that “Whatever the origins of the invasion, the stated plan was to develop in Iraq a representative government. My piece looked at whether this had been achieved.” In the article you write “according to the plan”. Why don’t you write in the article “By now, according to the stated plan, Iraq should have emerged...” Just one word would make the whole article much more correct, fair and balanced in my opinion. What do you think?

Thank you very much for your time.

Best wishes,
Gabriele


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Dear Paul,

Forgive my insistence. I am aware you must be busy with other things.

When you write “The British medical journal The Lancet suggested a figure of about 100,000.” Could you please add at least a time reference (The Lancet report was published online on October 29, 2004). I think this piece of information is quite important. Otherwise, since the article’s title is “Iraq three years on: A bleak tale” it would seem that the Lancet suggested that figure now.

I paste here below my previous email. I hope you may use some of the remarks below in your article.

Thank you again.

Best wishes,
Gabriele


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Gabriele

You have a fair point about the date of the Lancet report and I have added it in.

It is always a matter of judgment trying to balance detail against space. These articles are not intended to be dissertations. They aim to catch the general reader while showing the specialists that we are aware of the issues. I am therefore not going to quote from the Lancet report which had a good run when it came out. Nor from IBC itself, nor from MediaLens. It could on and on and take up the whole piece. It is currently a hot issue, but my intention was the look at the broad situation three years on.

Paul


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Hi Paul,

Thanks for the changes you have made.

Please, allow me just a few words to express my point of view.

You write:

“By now, according to the plan, Iraq should have emerged into a peaceful, stable representative democracy, an example to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East.”

As I asked you yesterday, how do you know that the “plan” was to build a “stable representative democracy, an example to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East.”

This is what Bush and Blair have been saying (since they had to admit that Iraq had no WMD). You have admitted this too, when in one of your emails yesterday you wrote me: “Whatever the origins of the invasion, the stated plan was to develop in Iraq a representative government”. Indeed. The “stated” plan. This means that that was what those who launched the invasion stated (again, after the “stated” WMD reasons for the invasion were abandoned because NO WMD were found).

In other words:

stated plan A: WMD
stated plan B: DEMOCRACY

Just to quote two people I interviewed for my book “None of the US allies in the region is a particularly democratic regime” (TIMOTHY MITCHELL, Middle Eastern Studies at New York University and Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies) and “in the entire area the United States has traditionally supported nondemocratic regimes—distinctly nondemocratic regimes.” (VICTORIA DE GRAZIA, Historian, Columbia University) (American Voices of Dissent, Paradigm Publishers, 2005)

Considering all this, don’t you think that it could and should be possible to find a more objective and balanced way to tell the story, rather than “By now, according to the plan, Iraq should have emerged into a peaceful, stable representative democracy, an example to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East.”

To be even more clear, I don’t expect you or any other journalist to reflect my views. But I am sure it’s possible to give a picture of the situation closer to the reality. What do you think?

Thank you once again for your time and willingness to a constructive dialogue.

Best wishes,
Gabriele


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Gabriele

This correspondence is closed!