Shameless BBC

Dear Bridget Kendall,

"There's still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?" (Bridget Kendall, BBC Six O'Clock News, Monday, March 20, 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)

Then there are American, British and other countries’ soldiers. In their thousands.

Disagreement?

82 per cent of Iraqis are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces;

67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

Disagreement?

“An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately” (U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006, Zogby International, February 28, 2006)

Disagreement?

“The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.” (“Iraq war illegal, says Annan”, BBC News website, Thursday, 16 September, 2004)

Now, please read your words: “There's still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?”

Do you know that "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." - Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals - Nuremberg, Germany 1946

Do you want to be responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity?

Please, I urge you to correct what you have said, adding a third option: “Was it justified, a disastrous miscalculation or – as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said - ‘an illegal act that contravened the UN charter’ ?”

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

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini

***

TODAY I RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING EMAIL FROM Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News

Thank you for your email about Bridget Kendall’s report on the Six O’Clock News on Monday (March 20th), pegged to the third anniversary since the start of the war in Iraq.

I’ve consulted Bridget and I have to confess that we are both surprised by your criticism of her having contrasted the word "justified" with "disastrous miscalculation" in the phrase, "There is still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq - was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?" Strictly speaking, the opposite of "justified" would be "unjustified" but that more neutral word would not point to the extent to which the war’s aftermath has proved extraordinarily problematic, which was the subject of this report. Bridget’s phrasing was much stronger.

The focus of this report was very much on the post-war difficulties and distress experienced by Iraqi people – not on the legality of the invasion of Iraq in the first place. Before the war, one "justification" for it was that it would improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis and the anniversary gave us an opportunity to examine whether so far this has proved correct. The report gave a picture of the extent of post-war difficulties in the round, including daily violence, economic set-backs and political turmoil.

I hope you find this explanation of the intention behind the phraseology helpful.

Yours sincerely

Helen Boaden

Director, BBC News