Lynching Saddam – Part 7: the Myth of Human Rights

Lynching Saddam – Part 7: the Myth of Human Rights
By Gabriele Zamparini (*)

“We have been trying to train the Iraqis in human rights. We’ve set up conferences for the Iraqis on human rights with all the NGOs. We’ve been trying our very best to get human rights into the Iraqi psyche. We want to help them I think” - Ann Clwyd, UK Prime Minister Blair’s Human Rights Envoy in Iraq, Newsnight, BBC 2, 15 November 2005

Part 1. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AND THE INVASION OF IRAQ

These are some excerpts from “War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention”, written on January 2004 by executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth:

“By contrast, the United States-led coalition forces justified the invasion of Iraq on a variety of grounds, only one of which—a comparatively minor one—was humanitarian. The Security Council did not approve the invasion, and the Iraqi government, its existence on the line, violently opposed it. Moreover, while the African interventions were modest affairs, the Iraq war was massive, involving an extensive bombing campaign and some 150,000 ground troops. (…) Human Rights Watch ordinarily takes no position on whether a state should go to war. The issues involved usually extend beyond our mandate, and a position of neutrality maximizes our ability to press all parties to a conflict to avoid harming noncombatants. The sole exception we make is in extreme situations requiring humanitarian intervention. Because the Iraq war was not mainly about saving the Iraqi people from mass slaughter, and because no such slaughter was then ongoing or imminent, Human Rights Watch at the time took no position for or against the war.” (1) [emphasis added]

Besides the HRW’s arguments to justify and when the so-called “humanitarian interventions” (sic!) [in other words when some people would be allowed to kill some people to save some people, if I understand… but maybe I am wrong] it’s interesting to understand HRW’s position regarding the invasion of Iraq:

a) “The Security Council did not approve the invasion”

The meaning of these few words has been highlighted many times already but obviously not enough.

After WWII “THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights… of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained… AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest…” (2)

On 20 March 2003 the governments of the United States and United Kingdom broke their solemn pledge [as they had also done with 2001 bombing of Afghanistan and the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in the Balkans] with the invasion of the sovereign country of Iraq, “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter” according to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. (3) The darkness that they brought to the Iraqi people has already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of human lives and contaminated that land with nuclear and chemical wastes for thousands of years to come.

The crime perpetrated by the Bush and Blair’s alliance is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes [Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha, etc.] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." (4)


b) “Human Rights Watch ordinarily takes no position on whether a state should go to war… sole exception… humanitarian intervention… Human Rights Watch at the time took no position for or against the war”

In other words, because after careful consideration HRW excluded that the US-led invasion of Iraq could be a “humanitarian intervention”, Human Rights Watch “at the time took no position for or against” that “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes [Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha, etc.] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Is this the last fashion for a Human Rights Philosophy for the Brave New World of the "War on Terror" and "Pre-Emptive Wars"? It looks like the XXI will be an interesting Century… maybe the last one?


Part 2. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AND SADDAM HUSSEIN

The official position of HRW on the invasion of Iraq must be completed with the official position of Human Rights Watch on Saddam Hussein. “One can only rejoice at the capture of Saddam Hussein. Few people are more deserving of trial and punishment. U.S. forces deserve credit for arresting the deposed dictator so that his crimes can be presented and condemned in a court of law, rather than arranging to kill him in combat.” (5) [emphasis added]

Those U.S. forces that – according to HRW’s Kenneth Roth – “deserve credit” are the same US forces that are responsible, according to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, for “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter”, using Nurember’s words “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes [Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha, etc.] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth at the end of his December 2003 article writes: “Governments should encourage Washington to allow an internationally led tribunal to try Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. The people of Iraq deserve no less.” (Ibid.)

Human Rights Watch has written extensively about Saddam Hussein’s Trial:

Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein witnessed extraordinarily serious human rights crimes. Human Rights Watch has documented genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in its several investigative reports on Iraq over the years. But now that Saddam Hussein has been apprehended, the question has grown more urgent: how will the crimes of the past be prosecuted? Human Rights Watch recommends that a mixed domestic-international tribunal should prosecute Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein’s Trial
Bringing Justice for the Human Rights Crimes in Iraq’s Past
HRW, December 2003

***

On December 13, U.S. forces in Iraq captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. On January 9 the United States officially declared that he was a prisoner-of-war (POW) under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The decision raises a number of issues under international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war.

Saddam Hussein as a P.O.W.
Q & A on the Prisoner-of-War Status of Saddam Hussein
HRW, January 22, 2004

***

Does Human Rights Watch want Saddam Hussein to be prosecuted?
Absolutely. And not only Saddam Hussein—other senior members of the Ba’ath Party as well. Human Rights Watch spent many years documenting the crimes of Saddam Hussein’s regime. We have called repeatedly over the years for the perpetrators of the massive crimes in Iraq, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, to be prosecuted. These trials are important not only because their success will influence the future shape of justice in Iraq, but also because this may be the only form of justice that the victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime are likely to have. Given the sheer scale of the atrocities, many relatives of victims may never get answers, may never find the remains of their loved ones. This trial could be the only kind of closure they receive.

The Trial of Saddam Hussein: Q-and-A
HRW, November 2004

***

BAGHDAD – To ensure justice for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi victims and their families, the trials of Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi officials must be fair, Human Rights Watch said today as the trials opened in Baghdad.

Iraq: Saddam Trial Under Scrutiny
HRW, OCTOBER 19, 2005

***

(New York, January 27, 2006) – Government interference with the independence of the judges in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants threatens the fairness of the proceedings, Human Rights Watch said today. The trial is scheduled to resume in Baghdad on Sunday.

Iraq: Saddam Hussein Trial At Risk
Government Undermines Independence of Judges

and finally on June 27, 2006, HRW states: “The brutal murder of Iraqi lawyer Khamis Al-Obeidi, defense counsel for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, underlines the urgent need for the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad to protect defense lawyers, Human Rights Watch said today. Its failure to do so jeopardizes the tribunal’s capacity to conduct fair trials.” Iraq: Court Must Act to Protect Defense Counsel, Iraqi High Tribunal Has Neglected Defense Lawyer Security, HRW, June 27, 2006

Interestingly this HRW’s statement does not mention that on 23 June 2006 Leandro Despouy, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, had issued a statement that among other things reads:

“The Special Rapporteur wishes to reiterate his support for the establishment of an international tribunal to ensure that the entire spectrum of barbaric crimes committed in Iraq are prosecuted in a comprehensive, independent and impartial manner, in full respect of the right to truth of all victims and of the international community at large”. (6) [emphasis added]

I e-mailed HRW on June 27 with the full text of the June 23 UN’s press release “UN rights expert calls for probe into killing of Saddam Hussein’s defence lawyer” and asked if HRW had any comment on this. No reply…

P.S. Just received from Amnesty International:

From: ……. @amnesty.org.uk
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:18:25 +0100
To: "The Cat's Dream"
Subject: Re: Question


Dear Gabriele Zamparini

Thank you for your email regarding Amnesty International's comments on the trial of Saddam Hussein.

We do not currently have a most recent statement with reference to the trial, however we are monitoring the trial and any information and updated comments will be available in our library section on our website. I have attached a link for your information: (link)
Here you will find an archive of most reports, news releases and urgent actions published from 1996 to date.

Many Thanks for your interest in our work.

Kind Regards


XXX XXX
Supporter Care Team
Amnesty International UK
Tel: 020 7033 1777

Amnesty International UK
The Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard
London
EC2A 3EA


From: The Cat's Dream
Date: 27/06/2006 13:51
To: Amnesty International
Subject: Re: Question


Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to ask if Amnesty has any comment to make on the recent developments in Saddam Hussein’s trial and the following call coming from Leandro Despouy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers (please, see below).

Thank you.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini

NOTES:

1) War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention, By Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch, January 2004

2) Charter of the United Nations – Preamble

3) “Iraq war illegal, says Annan”, BBC News website, Thursday, 16 September, 2004

4) Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany 1946

5) Try Saddam in an international court, Kenneth Roth, International Herald Tribune, December 15, 2003

6) UN rights expert calls for probe into killing of Saddam Hussein’s defence lawyer, UN News Centre, 23 June 2006


Read also:

- Lynching Saddam

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

- Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

- Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

- Lynching Saddam – Part 8: “just after the court ruling”


(*) Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker, writer and journalist living in London. He's the producer and director of the documentaries XXI CENTURY and The Peace! DVD and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers). He can be reached at info@thecatsdream.com - Find out more about him and his work at http://TheCatsDream.com

Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know
By Gabriele Zamparini (*)

“(…) there can be no doubt that behind all the actions of this court of justice, that is to say in my case, behind my arrest and today's interrogation, there is a great organization at work. An organization which not only employs corrupt warders, oafish Inspectors, and Examining Magistrates of whom the best that can be said is that they recognize their own limitations, but also has at its disposal a judicial hierarchy of high, indeed of the highest rank, with an indispensable and numerous retinue of servants, clerks, police, and other assistants, perhaps even hangmen, I do not shrink from that word. And the significance of this great organization, gentlemen? (…)” - Franz Kafka, The Trial

A few years ago journalist, film-maker and media activist Danny Schechter, wrote a book whose title - The More You Watch the Less You Know - is perfect to summarize the news we get from our mainstream media on the trial of Prisoner of War President Saddam Hussein. (Note: the words “news”, “our”, “mainstream media” and “trial” need to be read in italics).

“The second trial of Saddam Hussein, for genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s, will start on August 21, prosecutors at the Special Tribunal said” (1) Reuters informs us on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 8:01 in the morning. After a few hours, same day, late afternoon at 5:24 PM Reuters tells us that “Forensic experts have uncovered identification cards beside alleged victims of Saddam Hussein in mass graves that Iraqi prosecutors hope will offer damning evidence in his trial for genocide against the Kurds.” (2) Wait fifty-six minutes and on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 6:20 PM Reuters reports:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Executing Saddam Hussein would fuel more sectarian violence in Iraq, a U.S. lawyer for the deposed Iraqi leader said on Tuesday.

"That execution would inflame a country that's already incinerating," former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said. "I hope the American people can realize that if there is ever a time to call for an end to executions, it is in this case."(…)

Clark, a veteran defender of unpopular high-profile cases, spoke at a news conference to highlight his call for better protection of Saddam's lawyers, three of whom have been killed since the Iraqi trial started in October. The third was killed on Wednesday. (3)

At this point, the media circus has all the news that’s fit to print.

Interestingly though, a particular aspect of the same press conference is not reported by the Reuters above:

(CNSNews.com) - An attorney defending Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi High Criminal Court on Tuesday accused the United States government of intimidating and hampering the efforts of the disposed Iraqi dictator's defense team.

Curtis Doebbler, one of the international lawyers representing Saddam, said there is "an intentional effort ... by the United States government to intimidate us and to try to prevent us from even coming to the trial, much less in providing a defense."

Doebbler joined fellow Saddam defense lawyer Ramsey Clark in a press conference in Washington, D.C., to criticize what they called the Bush administration's failure to provide adequate security for defense lawyers and their families in Iraq. (4)

This blog has already published and passed on to the British liberal media:

- the CONCLUSION from the PRELIMINARY SUBMISSION CHALLENGING THE LEGALITY OF THE SPECIAL COURT presented on 21 December 2005 by the Lawyers for the Defendants’ team; and

- the United Nations’ call with the statements by Leandro Despouy, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. (5)

The darkest scandal of our time, the supreme international crime, the invasion-occupation of Iraq, has been hidden behind a thick web of lies and propaganda. The trial of PoW President Saddam Hussein stands at the center of this web and “… there can be no doubt that behind all the actions of this… [trial] … there is a great organization at work. … And the significance of this great organization, gentlemen?”


NOTES

1) Second Saddam trial to start August 21: prosecutor, Reuters, Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 8:01 AM

2) Experts say key evidence against Saddam in graves, Reuters, Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 5:24 PM

3) Saddam death would worsen Iraq violence: lawyer, Reuters, Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 6:20 PM

4) Attorney Says US Intimidating Saddam Hussein's Lawyers, By Nathan Burchfiel, CNSNews.com Staff Writer, June 28, 2006

5) Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call, By Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog, Tuesday, June 27, 2006

***

Read also:

- Lynching Saddam

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!



(*) Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker, writer and journalist living in London. He's the producer and director of the documentaries XXI CENTURY and The Peace! DVD and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers). He can be reached at info@thecatsdream.com - Find out more about him and his work at http://TheCatsDream.com

Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call
By Gabriele Zamparini

The United Nations reported:

A United Nations expert on human rights and legal systems today called on the Iraqi Government to launch an independent investigation into the killing of a lawyer working for the defence team of former President Saddam Hussein. (…) Leandro Despouy, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers said (…) “This is the third killing of a member of Saddam Hussein's defence team since the trial started in October last year,” (…) In that light, the statement said that the Special Rapporteur reiterated his criticisms of the Iraqi High Tribunal, namely, that its jurisdiction is limited to certain groups of individuals, that it was set up in the context of an armed occupation, that it violates the right to be tried by an impartial tribunal and under those conditions is empowered to impose the death penalty. “ The Special Rapporteur wishes to reiterate his support for the establishment of an international tribunal to ensure that the entire spectrum of barbaric crimes committed in Iraq are prosecuted in a comprehensive, independent and impartial manner, in full respect of the right to truth of all victims and of the international community at large,” the statement said.

UN rights expert calls for probe into killing of Saddam Hussein’s defence lawyer

The Lawyers for the Defendants had already demanded on 21 December 2005 in the PRELIMINARY SUBMISSION CHALLENGING THE LEGALITY OF THE SPECIAL COURT:

CONCLUSION

1. Special Court created by special legislation that has been promulgated by a foreign occupying power in violations of its obligations under international and national law can not be sustained as legal and should accept it on illegality in the name of promoting the rule of law in Iraq.

2. Defendants therefore seek that:

3. all further proceedings of the special Court be stayed until such time as a legitimate and legal Court can be established;

4. the establishment of a schedule for oral argument on this preliminary issue; and,

5. the establishment of a schedule for written pleadings to be submitted by both the defense and the prosecution on the issue of the legitimacy of the special Court and its compatibility with both national and international law.

The motion challenging the legitimacy of the court online

I am sure WE ALL in the anti-war and anti-occupation movement WILL support the United Nations’ call!


Read also:

- - Lynching Saddam

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

Iraq between genocide and coincidences

Iraq between genocide and coincidences
By Gabriele Zamparini

You could not make it up! Just a few days after Iraq Body Count’s numbers have lost any credibility (1) the Los Angeles Times published “War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000”:

BAGHDAD — At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies — a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration. (…) But Health Ministry records do differentiate causes of death. Almost 75% of those who died violently were killed in "terrorist acts," typically bombings, the records show. The other 25% were killed in what were classified as military clashes. A health official described the victims as "innocent bystanders," many shot by Iraqi or American troops, in crossfire or accidentally at checkpoints. (2)

Stephen Soldz wrote an important comment on this:

Further, the fact that mortality estimates come from government sources raises questions as to the accuracy of attributed causes. After all, attributing deaths to “terrorist attacks” is more acceptable to the powers-that-be than is attributing tem to “American forces” or to pro-government militias and death squads. Thus, without strong confirmatory evidence, we should be suspicious of claims, such as the LA Times statement that, among the 39% of reported deaths from Health Ministry:

”Almost 75% of those who died violently were killed in “terrorist acts,” typically bombings, the records show. The other 25% were killed in what were classified as military clashes. A health official described the victims as “innocent bystanders,” many shot by Iraqi or American troops, in crossfire or accidentally at checkpoints.” (3)

Yes, we should be suspicious indeed. Why?

At the end of the year 2003, the Associated Press reported:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq's Health Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied in an email that he had anything to do with the order, saying he didn't even know about the study.

Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department, said the order was relayed to her by the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, who said it came on behalf of Abbas. She said the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, also wanted the counting to stop.

"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."(4)

On 30 January, 2005, the BBC published the following (revealing) article:

Iraq Health Ministry Figures

On Thursday, January 27 2005, the Iraqi ministry of health released to the BBC's Panorama programme statistics stating that for the six-month period from 1 July 2004 to 1 January 2005:

• 3,274 people in Iraq were killed and 12, 657 injured in conflict-related violence
• 2,041 of these deaths were the result of military action, in which 8,542 people were injured
• 1,233 deaths were the result of "terrorist" incidents

These figures were based on records from Iraqi public hospitals.

The BBC initially reported these figures as meaning that the deaths and injuries resulting from military operations were the result of actions by the multinational force and Iraqi security forces.

On Saturday, the Iraqi ministry of health issued a statement clarifying matters that were the subject of several conversations with the BBC before the report was published, and denying that the conclusion could be drawn from the figures relating to military operations.

It stated that those recorded as killed in military action included Iraqis killed by terrorists, not only those killed by coalition forces or Iraqi security forces; and that those recorded as killed in military action included terrorists themselves, and Iraqi security forces.

The BBC regrets mistakes in its initial published and broadcast reports. (5)

Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported:

BAGHDAD, March 8 -- Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings. A statement this week by the U.N. human rights department in Baghdad appeared to support the account of the Health Ministry official. The agency said it had received information about Baghdad's main morgue -- where victims of fatal shootings are taken -- that indicated "the current acting director is under pressure by the Interior Ministry in order not to reveal such information and to minimize the number of casualties." (…) The Washington Post reported on Feb. 28 that more than 1,300 shooting victims had been brought to the morgue in the first six days after the Samarra bombing. The figure was provided by a morgue worker who refused to be identified by name. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari denied the account, saying Shiite-Sunni violence had claimed 379 lives in the week following the attack on the shrine. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq, called The Post's report exaggerated and inaccurate. An e-mail sent to U.S. military officials this week seeking updated casualty figures went unanswered. (6)

We all should consider carefully what’s really going on in Iraq and try to have not a selective memory nor to dismiss or patronize what the Iraqi people are telling us:

“The Health Ministry, which operates the Baghdad morgue and government hospitals, is in the hands of a religious party headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric whose militia, the Mahdi Army, waged two armed uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004. Since the Samarra bombing, the Mahdi Army has been widely accused of kidnapping and killing Sunni men. Families collecting bodies at the morgue last week described gunmen in the black clothes associated with Sadr's militia coming to Sunni homes or to mosques and taking men away.”(Ibidem)

It’s in this context that the lynching of prisoner of war President Saddam Hussein (7) is staged and it’s also in this context that the public relations’ campaign to discredit the Iraqi Resistance is working, both within and outside Iraq. [Obviously, a word of caution is imperative since the fog is very thick, but there is enough to ask questions, demand actions and again use sceptisism. As far as I know, usually resistance movements are not part of those (puppet) governments they resist and fight against…]

NOTES

1) See: “Darkness and Light. When international law and science are silenced, the only outcome is darkness”, By Gabriele Zamparini AND “Exchange between Les Roberts and John Sloboda on Iraq Body Count and the Lancet”

2) War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000. Higher than the U.S. estimate but thought to be undercounted, the tally is equivalent to 570,000 Americans killed in three years, By Louise Roug and Doug Smith, Times Staff Writers, June 25, 2006

3) Los Angeles Times estimates Iraqi dead at 50,000, June 25th, 2006, Psyche, Science, and Society, Blog of Stephen Soldz: Psychoanayst, Psychologist, Researcher, and Activist

4) Iraq's Health Ministry ordered to stop counting civilian dead from war, AP, 12/10/2003

5) Iraq Health Ministry Figures, BBC NEWS, 30 January, 2005

6) Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count, By Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, March 9, 2006; Page A01

7) Lynching Saddam, Parts 1-4 by Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog

Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

The Washington official reactions to the lynching of prisoner of war President Saddam Hussein comes - as usual - from the pages of the New York Times:

No arrests have been made in any of the trial-related assassinations, including those of a judge and his son, also a court employee. Some American officials strongly suspect that members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party may have played a role with the aim of discrediting the court. Indeed, each killing has been followed by an upsurge of demands, from Western human rights organizations as well as Baathists, for the trial to be moved out of Iraq. (1)

But once again, something doesn't seem right here.

A few days ago the same New York Times wrote:

Iraqi witnesses said that Mr. Obeidi was transported in a convoy of vehicles by people known as belonging to the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia known to be affiliated with the rebellious anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Witnesses said they wore flak jackets and shouted "terrorist" at one point. Mr. Obeidi was taken to a spot called Hamidiya, about six miles from his house, according to witnesses. His body was dumped in a place for construction debris, apparently retrieved again, and then dumped in a lot in Sadr City. It was then taken to the Tahtheeb police station there, an area known as a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, riddled with bullets in the head, chest and back. (2)

What did it happen between this first NYT's story published on June 21 and the other NYT's story, published four days later on June 25? Do "some American officials" have new elements to tell the NYT that they "strongly suspect that members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party may have played a role with the aim of discrediting the court."? And why All The News That's Fit to Print does not ask "some American officials" to demonstrate what they say with facts and evidence instead of publishing undocumented speculations? Does the NYT believe in "conspiracy theories"?

Let's go back to facts.

Two years ago, on 3 July 2004, Al-Jazeera reported:

Shaikh Raid al-Kadhimi, a senior preacher among Iraq's Shia, warned the lawyers, whom he described as "mercenary lawyers", against coming to Iraq.

"I advise the monkeys, those mercenary lawyers, who wish to defend Saddam, not to come to Iraq because Iraqis will be ready to deal with them," he said from the pulpit of Baghdad's Kadhimiyah Shrine.

"We demand the execution of Saddam Hussein and we think we represent the opinion of al-Sadr's supporters and most Iraqis," said Shaikh Awad Khafaji, a chief aide of Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, during his Friday sermon in a Shia district of Baghdad. (3)

Earlier this year, Reuters reported about the resignation of the chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein:

The killings of two defense lawyers have already prompted questions over the U.S.-backed decision to hold the trial in the midst of bitter sectarian and ethnic conflict. (...) A source close to Kurdish judge Rizgar Amin himself told Reuters that tribunal officials were trying to talk him out of his decision but he was reluctant to stay on because Shiite leaders had criticized him for being “soft” on Saddam in court. “He tendered his resignation to the court a few days ago but the court rejected it. Now talks are under way to convince him to go back on his decision,” he said on Saturday. “He’s under a lot of pressure, the whole court is under political pressure. “I am not sure if he will go back on his decision,” said the source, who is familiar with Amin’s thinking. “He had complaints from the government that he was being too soft in dealing with Saddam. They want things to go faster.” The last straw, the source said, was a letter criticizing his handling of the trial from radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, whose movement is part of the ruling Islamist bloc. (4)

Just a few months ago, the Associated Press reported about shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr:

The cleric, speaking from the holy city of Najaf, said Saddam Hussein should not be tried but executed immediately. He criticized what he called American intervention in the trial and causing to take too much time. (5)

It's also interesting to notice that while Gulf News reported:

Shopowners told reporters that three gunmen had dumped the body at a roundabout under a poster of a senior Shiite cleric killed by Saddam's agents in 1999. The cleric is the father of Moqtada Al Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army. "They fired into the air and said 'this is the fate of Baathists!'," said a shopkeeper.

the Independent wrote:

Mr Obaidi is the eighth person associated with the court case to be killed. Witnesses described how three masked gunmen threw his corpse under the poster of a prominent Shia cleric executed by Saddam Hussein's regime in 1999 while shouting "This is the fate of all Baathists." Police were unable to confirm reports that his abductors were wearing police uniforms. (6)

I wonder why the Independent didn't report that the cleric in that poster was "the father of Moqtada Al Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army."

Once again, I reiterate my questions with the hope that other people will join:

Will the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the "liberal media" (among others) have the courage and honesty to demand the (American directed) "trial" to be stopped?

Notes

1) Hussein Thinks He Will Get Death Penalty but Sees Escape Hatch, His Lawyer Says, EDWARD WONG, NYT, June 25, 2006

2) Third Lawyer in Hussein Trial Is Killed, By JOHN F. BURNS and CHRISTINE HAUSER, NYT, June 21, 2006

3) Saddam's lawyers threatened, By Ahmed Janabi, Al-Jazeera, Saturday 03 July 2004

4) Iraq tries to convince Saddam judge to stay. Amin tenders resignation amid claims of government interference, REUTERS, Jan. 15, 2006

5) Iraqi Shi'ite cleric calls U.S., Britain and Israel a 'Triad of Evil', By The Associated Press, 11/03/2006

6) Saddam's lawyer is tortured and murdered, By Kim Sengupta, The Independent, 22 June 2006

***

Read also:

- - Lynching Saddam

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

- Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

- Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

Gulf News reported:

Doha: A lawyer in Saddam Hussain's defence team blamed the Iraqi ministry of the interior for the assassination of his colleague Khamis Al Obaidi yesterday and said that the killing was meant to silence the defence team.

Former Qatari justice minister Najeeb Al Nuaimi, one of the lawyers for the former Iraqi leader, also blamed the Americans for failing to protect the defence team, but added that the assassination will not affect the trial. (...)

Shopowners told reporters that three gunmen had dumped the body at a roundabout under a poster of a senior Shiite cleric killed by Saddam's agents in 1999. The cleric is the father of Moqtada Al Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army. "They fired into the air and said 'this is the fate of Baathists!'," said a shopkeeper.

Will there be an independent investigation on these killings?

Are these killings linked to what has been going on for many months in Iraq and generally described by the media as "sectarian killings"?

Who is Moqtada Al Sadr and which role his Mehdi Army has been playing in Iraq?

Will the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the "liberal media" (among others) have the courage and honesty to demand the (American directed) "trial" to be stopped?

The "trial" is set to end next month…

***

Read also:

- - Lynching Saddam

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

- Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

- Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

Following the murder of one of the main lawyers defending prisoner of war President Saddam Hussein in that lynching circus the US’ government exported to Iraq (even Kafka would have not dared calling that thing a “trial”), one of the most interesting comments comes from Juan Cole.

The favourite of much part of the western anti-war movement spent as many as 111 words to comment:

Another of Saddam's defense attorneys was assassinated. That tribunal, which at one time seemed as though it would be source of good news for the Bush administration, has been handled so badly that it has become nothing short of an embarrassment. Three defense lawyers killed, and one witness alleging that some of the men Saddam is alleged to have had killed at Dujail are still alive. Saddam even emerged after the February bombing of the golden dome at Samarra and the subsequent faith-based massacres between Shiite and Sunni as a voice of national unity. To give the old mass murderer the occasion to grandstand that way. It is incompetence, criminal incompetence. (1)

The former (?) head of state overthrown by a foreign, military, illegal and immoral invasion that’s destroyed the whole state of Iraq and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people, is called by Cole’s informed comment “Saddam” for three times and finally “the old mass murderer”. Cole's Conclusion: “It is incompetence, criminal incompetence”.

This is the same Juan Cole who wrote last November, about the US’ use of White Phosphorous in Fallujah: “This is a public relations issue, not an issue of war crimes”. (2)

Maybe Juan Cole should listen to the US National Public Radio more often. American historian and journalist William Blum wrote a few days ago:

National Public Radio foreign correspondent Loren Jenkins, serving in NPR's Baghdad bureau, met earlier this month with a senior Shiite cleric, a man who was described in the NPR report as "a moderate" and as a person trying to lead his Shiite followers into practicing peace and reconciliation. He had been jailed by Saddam Hussein and forced into exile. Jenkins asked him: "What would you think if you had to go back to Saddam Hussein?" The cleric replied that he'd "rather see Iraq under Saddam Hussein than the way it is now." (3)

Besides Cole’s agenda, his followers in the West and the anti-war movement in its whole should remember the words William Blum writes at the end of his report: “And many Iraqis actually supported him [Saddam Hussein]”.

Legitimate, respectable different opinions and point of views can and should go together with intellectual honesty and historical truth. That’s the only possible way to build opposition to this vicious and rapacious empire. All the rest is propaganda’s smokescreen we all should be very careful of.


NOTES:

1) Juan Cole, June 22, 2006, Informed Comment

2) Open letter to Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan By Gabriele Zamparini

3) The Anti-Empire Report. Some things you need to know before the world ends, William Blum, June 21, 2006

***

Read also:

- - Lynching Saddam

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

- Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

- Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

Lynching Saddam

On June 12, 2006 after reporting:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An American lawyer on Saddam Hussein's defense team lashed out at the court Monday, saying it was not giving defenders enough time and was intimidating witnesses. Curtis Doebbler chided the chief judge for not responding to a series of defense motions, including ones challenging the court's legitimacy and seeking documents. He asked for a break in the proceedings until those issues were resolved.

"We are at a serious disadvantage to the prosecution because of the way we have been treated by the court," Doebbler told chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman. "We want to work for justice. But that must start by having a fair trial.

"But under the current circumstances, that doesn't seem possible. We ask that the trial be stopped to allow us adequate time to prepare our defense."

He pointed out that the prosecution took more than five months to present its case, while the court is rushing the defense, which began its arguments in April. Abdel-Rahman has repeatedly demanded the defense present full lists of witnesses.

"Our witnesses have been intimidated by the court and have been assaulted," Doebbler said. "Several lawyers were assaulted as well."

the Associated Press concluded:

“The perceived fairness of the trial is a crucial issue, since U.S. and Iraqi officials have hoped that showing justice toward Saddam will help heal the deep Shiite-Sunni divisions that have exploded since his regime's fall.”

Today, June 21, 2006, the BBC reports:

Saddam defence lawyer shot dead

One of the main lawyers defending former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at his trial has been shot dead.

Khamis al-Obeidi's body was found dumped in the capital, Baghdad, hours after he was abducted from his home.

Defence lawyers have frequently complained that they have not been given enough protection, calling the trial's fairness into question.

Two other defence lawyers were murdered last year in the early stages of the trial, which is set to end next month.

Do the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the “liberal media” (among others) have anything to say about this peculiar form of “justice”?

Or should we assume that in the New World Order we have accepted the pre-emptive concept of justice: lynching!

*****************************

Read also:

- Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

- Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

- Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

- Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

- Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

- Lynching Saddam – Part 7: the Myth of Human Rights

- Lynching Saddam – Part 8: “just after the court ruling”

exchange between Les Roberts and John Sloboda on Iraq Body Count and the Lancet

June 19, 2006

Dear Dr. Sloboda,

I was sorry to receive the e-mail below. In dozens of interviews where reporters have delved into the discrepancies of our death tolls over the first 18 months of the war in Iraq, I have attempted (sometimes unsuccessfully) to emphasize my gratitude to IBC. IBC kept the issue of civilian deaths in the public eye for months when insecurity kept me from going to Iraq. I suspected we had the same motives and goals and had hoped that our efforts might complement one another. I believe that I emphasized this in my note to Hamit Dardagan on 10/28/04 and my unanswered e-mail seeking cooperation with you 3 months later. But, given the widely broadcast and personal nature of your comments below, I am compelled to respond.

1) In the HPN report and the MIT Audits of Conventional Wisdom, I do cite Dr. Hoge's fine article on the mental health of returning soldiers. In that article it is reported that interviewed Army soldiers returning had been there 8 months and that (in Table 2) 14% of them reported "Being responsible for the death of a non-combatant". The Marine column of this table is more complex, while it says 28% felt they were responsible for killing a non-combatant, in the methods section their duration of service is less clear. There were two Divisions sampled and one was there for 6 months and one was there for 3 months. Thus, we need to make some assumptions to acquire a daily death rate. These include:
a) the interviewed Marines were in Iraq 4.5 months on average;
b) there were US 135,000 soldiers serving in Iraq during this period;
c) 70% were Army, and 30% were Marines. We felt that this was conservative because other forces (Air Force) would probably have reported higher rates and because it is believed the Marine fraction averaged a little higher;
d) there were 30.4 days in a month.

The 133 number came from Richard Garfield almost 18 months ago. I have not discussed this note or his assumptions with him since then and I just today calculated an almost identical 137 deaths per day based on the assumptions above. Of course Dr. Hoge did not say that this is reported in his article. He is a highly regarded mental health expert and I suspect that tallying death tolls is outside of the scope of his ethical review for the research and perhaps his comfort level as well. Moreover, if he said, "Yes, we reported a civilian death toll six times higher than our Commander in Chief," he would probably lose his job.

The text of the Hoge article implies that an individual being interviewed felt responsible for a death. We shared Dr. Hoge's concern that it is in the best nature of humans to feel individual guilt for something that was done by a group. Given that the bulk of civilian deaths were from artillery and air-strikes according to our study and the NCCI dataset, and that those soldiers would be unlikely to fully witness their damage, this estimate was probably a gross under-estimate. Also note that the Hoge article would record a soldier who thought they killed 5 civilians the same way it would record a single killing. Thus, attributing that 14% of Army soldiers accidentally killed "a" civilian would err toward a low estimate.

2) Please note the Audit article says that the Hoge reference "...suggests an unintentional non-combatant death toll of 133 deaths per day." In the HPN paper the table (6) citing the death toll estimates is headed in bold as, "Violent deaths per day implied". We have never said "reported" or "recorded." We used words such as "suggests" and "implied" to convey the notion that we had some role in interpreting these data.

Both of the HPN and Audit articles were meant to give an overview of the issue of civilian death tolls. All of the time, public health data is collected for one purpose and is later used for another. Most newspaper reports cited in your data set were not collected to show a tally of deaths nationwide. Given that a large sample of returning soldiers reported accidentally killing civilians, and that this rate was quantified from a sample, it would have been irresponsible to have not mentioned the Hoge article in these overviews. Your assertion that we "... have misused the authority of the New England Journal of Medicine and the authors of this July 2004 paper..." is perplexing.

3) Please note that all of the mortality sources cited in the HPN paper did not provide a daily violent death rate. Death rates were not provided by IBC. In each case, assumptions needed to be made to get the provided estimate. The assumptions regarding the Lancet estimate are far, far greater than the Hoge article estimate. The Lancet estimate, for example, assumes that no violent deaths have occurred in Anbar Province; that it is fair to subtract out the pre-invasion violence rate; and that the 5 deaths in our data induced by a US military vehicles are not "violent deaths." It seems strange that of the 5 other references cited, you did not reach out to the authors of the highest estimate, or the articles which required the biggest assumptions, but instead reached out to a US military researcher who is the only one not free to publish or speculate about the number of civilian deaths in Iraq.

4) Most epidemiologists are reluctant to speculate about completeness of their surveillance system before going out and trying to evaluate the system sensitivity. It is easily done! You have publicly speculated about IBC's completeness rates, rates which are unheard of in times of war. According to my colleague Riyadh Lafta (cc:ed above), only about 1/3rd of deaths were captured by the Government's surveillance system in the years before the Coalition invasion (that was based on a conversation with Riyadh and the assumption that there were 24,000,000 people in Iraq dying at a rate of 5/1000/year, or that 120,000 people were dying per year. In 2002, the Gov. of Iraq documented less than 40,000 from all sources).

First, given that there should be 120,000 deaths per year as a baseline and every estimate I have seen implies that there are more violent deaths than peaceful deaths, the IBC estimate seems very low.

Second, Jim Krane from AP News wrote me on March 2, 2006 regarding the appearance that the IBC count might not be complete. (I have cc:ed him above.) He points out that 24,000 violent death corpses have entered the Baghdad morgue since the invasion when it used to be 2-3000 per year before the invasion (thus~17,000 excess deaths as of 3 months ago). I suspect that his suspicion was raised because less than a quarter of the population lives in Baghdad, the violent death rate is lower there than the rest of the country according to our data and NCCI's data, and the morgues traditionally capture a small fraction of deaths. Thus, twice as many deaths in all of Iraq as recorded in the Baghdad morgue suggest IBC is very incomplete.

Finally, we measured the sensitivity of your surveillance system during the first 18 months, we found it was <5%. This is what we generously referred to in the HPN paper as "cannot be more than 20% complete." The Falluja deaths in our data set were recorded by month and in IBC Falluja deaths were not as distinct as elsewhere so that we could not match them. However, among the other 21 violent deaths we encountered in our random sample of 988 households, one was in the IBC data set. Thus, unless you have evaluated the sensitivity of your system from some independent data source, I hope you will temper the statements you make about the complete nature of the IBC dataset.

5% completeness is the norm of newspaper reporting in times of war. (See Patrick Ball's work in Guatemala online with the AAAS) I suspect and hope that the sensitivity has increased over time as systems have improved and the role of major battles with airpower has diminished. But, the speculation in the press that the real number might only be twice the IBC tally is preposterous.

Last October 11th, I was invited at 2 hours notice before a flight left to appear on the BBC program Newsnight with Jack Straw. I called you at that time, hoping to hear that IBC had calibrated the system and to give you the chance to defend the IBC sensitivity before saying on-air that I had found it to be ~5% complete. Because we did not speak, I did not then, and up until now, report our evaluation of your sensitivity in public. I thought I was doing you a favor by calling.

5) As for your "Speculation is no substitute" paper, I discussed it with some of my coauthors when it arrived. We decided that it was so devoid of credibility, and so laden with self-interest rather than the interest of the Iraqis, it did not merit a response.

6) It is unfortunate that the HPN paper had the wrong dates for the 17/death per day estimate of IBC. I believe that rate was from 2003. That was a mistake on my part. If we revise the dates and rate to cover the first 18 months of the war, the change from 17 to 27 deaths per day does not change any conclusions ever presented in any paper or talk. Surveillance is almost always incomplete in times of war compared to surveys, and the conclusion remains the same, the three lowest estimates of the death rate in Iraq are surveillance-based.

There will come a day when the foreign armies will diminish in Iraq and a full census and accounting of this war will take place. I look forward to that day.

I have been asked dozens of times, mostly by epidemiologists, what is IBC's motive to overstate the completeness of their estimate. I have always been able to respond that I do not know. However, the focus of your note below will only serve to bolster the universally unflattering speculation.

Sincerely,

Les Roberts


**************************************************************************


From: John Sloboda
Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2006 5:10 PM
Subject: your mis-citation of New England Journal of Medicine

Dear Dr Roberts,

This email concerns your mis-citation of a New England Journal of Medicine article as well as a related error.

In your paper entitled "The Iraq War: Do Civilians Matter?", published in July 2005 by the MIT Center for International Studies in its series "Audits of Conventional Wisdom", you state that:

"A report in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2004, based on interviews with returning U.S. soldiers, suggests an unintentional non-combatant death toll of 133 deaths per day."
( http://web.mit.edu/cis/pdf/Audit_6_05_Roberts.pdf page 2)

This statement was repeated in the version of this paper republished on the Alternet web site ( http://www.alternet.org/story/31508/ ) and the estimate of 133 violent deaths per day also appeared in Table 6 of a publication entitled "Intepreting and using mortality data in humanitarian emergencies" authored by Francesco Checchi and yourself, and published by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) as "Humanitarian Practice Network Paper no 52" (2005) ( http://odihpn.org/documents/networkpaper052.pdf page 30 ). The table is entitled "Estimates of violent deaths per day in occupied Iraq" and the source of the "133 deaths per day" estimate is described in that table as "Mental Health Study, 2004".

In all cases, the sole reference you provide for this figure of 133 is:

Hoge CW, Castro CA, Messer SC et al. "Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistam, mental health problems and barriers to care. "New England Journal of Medicine. 351 (July 1. 2004): 13-21." (NEJM)

As we pointed out in our paper "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count" published in Arpil 2006 ( http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/defended ), and which was copied to you at the time, nowhere in this cited NEJM paper is there any reference to an estimated per-day rate of violent deaths, whether 133 or any other number, and there is nothing in any of your publications to explain how this 133 per-day rate is derived (our discussion of this matter is contained in section 3.4.2 (page 14 of pdf version) and in greater depth in the related Appendix 3.4.2.a (page 38 of pdf version). You simply cite the undoubtedly prestigious Journal as if it contained the facts you claim for it, which it does not, and nor do you explain how you take the data in that article and transform it into the "133 violent deaths per day", which is surely the crucial calculation and which would allow critical appraisal of your "133" number.

We recently contacted the first author of the NEJM paper, Dr Charles Hoge, who replied as follows:

"In no way can our data be used to estimate civilian deaths. We ask two questions related to killing of enemy combatants and civilians on the our anonymous questionnaire that we ask U.S soldiers, but neither can be used to estimate casualty rates. We ask if at any time in the deployment the soldier perceived that he was responsible for the death of an enemy combatant and another similar question pertaining to the death of civilians. Since all members of a team may in some way be responsible during a combat operation these questions can in no way be used to estimate actual civilian casualty numbers. " (email to John Sloboda, dated 8th May 2006)

In summary, you have published a claim, on the basis of the Hoge et al paper, which the lead author of that paper says is unsustainable (just as we had independently argued).

There are two matters of serious concern:

1. You have misused the authority of the New England Journal of Medicine and the authors of this July 2004 paper to promote a claim which has no basis in that study and which is explicitly rejected by the authors of that study.

2. The supposed 133 per-day-rate of civilian deaths is one of several "estimates" used by you and many of your readers to make unwarranted claims about the relative value of different studies of Iraqi mortality, and the likely overall death toll. Your use of this figure, and the use made of it by others, has thus helped to spread confusion and misinformation on a matter which is of the utmost gravity, and where therefore the highest standards of rigour and professionalism are needed from those claiming academic expertise and authority.

We note that you have made no attempt to correct these and a series of other errors since receiving our "Speculation is no substitute" document referenced above, wherein we subjected some of your claims about Iraqi deaths and the sources of information on them to rational and critical analysis. Since the critiques of "amateurs" apparently leave you unimpressed, whether correct or not, we hope that you will show greater regard for the opinion of Dr Hoge, whose paper you have misused.

We also note that, whereas after the intercession of co-author Francesco Checchi you agreed to correct a blatant factor of two arithmetical error about the daily rate of deaths recorded by Iraq Body Count, you have made no discernible attempt to correct the exact same error in online articles authored solely by yourself. Thus even the simple errors accepted by yourself and corrected in ODI 2005 remain unchanged in MIT 2005 as well as in the (probably more widely read) version of the MIT paper reproduced at Alternet.org. We expect that professional standards would require you and other responsible parties to ensure that these errors are corrected forthwith, without further delay.

In the light of the seriousness of this matter, we are copying this to Dr Hoge, as lead author of the mis-cited NEJM study, your co-author Francesco Checchi, the Humanitarian Practice Network of the ODI hpn@odi.org.uk , the MIT Centre for International Studies cis_info@mit.edu , and to the Managing Editor of Alternet tai@alternet.org

Yours sincerely,

John Sloboda (on behalf of the Iraq Body Count Team)

***

UPDATE: A NEW EMAIL FROM IBC'S JOHN SLOBODA

From: John Sloboda john@oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:01:33 +0100

Dear Dr Roberts,

Thank you for your email of Monday 19th June 2006, copied below. We only wish to make three comments here:

1. Our letter to you of Sunday 18th June was not "widely broadcast". It
was sent to you, and to those who would be most directly concerned (i.e.
Dr Hoge, your co-author Francesco Checchi, and the three publishers of
the articles in question). We did not copy it to Media Lens or
journalists. That was your choice.

We will therefore continue to correspond with you, along with those we
originally CC'ed, but beyond one-time inclusion as a courtesy in the
present email, we will copy our future emails only to those recipients
on your CC list who explicitly request to be included in further
correspondence on this matter. We fail to see what their involvement is
in this. (Note that we have only added Amy Tarr because
the other email address for CIS at MIT was non-functional.)

2. You have conceded that no mortality estimate, either per-day or
otherwise, was present in NEJM. Any reasonable person reading the MIT
or ODI papers would have gained the false impression that the estimate
you published was provided by the NEJM authors, and endorsed by the
authority of the NEJM. We continue to believe that there is a
responsibility to correct this false impression.

3. To be consistent, if you have corrected the incorrect
17-per-day-rate attributed to IBC in the ODI paper, you should correct
it in the MIT/Alternet article as well.

The other claims you make in your letter are not relevant to the issue
at hand.

Yours sincerely,

John Sloboda (for Iraq Body Count)

**********************************************************************

Gabriele Zamparini's (public) reply to Dr. Sloboda's last e-mail:

I have received this last e-mail from IBC' John Sloboda:

From: John Sloboda
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:01:33 +0100
To: Les Roberts
Cc: (...) "'The Cat's Dream'" info@thecatsdream.com, (...)
Subject: Re: mis-citation of New England Journal of Medicine

In this e-mail, Dr. Sloboda also writes:

"We will therefore continue to correspond with you, along with those we originally CC'ed, but beyond one-time inclusion as a courtesy in the present email, we will copy our future emails only to those recipients on your CC list who explicitly request to be included in further correspondence on this matter. We fail to see what their involvement is in this. (Note that we have only added Amy Tarr because the other email address for CIS at MIT was non-functional.)"

Dr. Sloboda should know my "involvement" since he wrote his first email to Les Roberts after my article was published:

Darkness and Light
When international law and science are silenced, the only outcome is darkness

So I fail to understand Dr. Sloboda's words ["We fail to see what their involvement is in this."] and above all I fail to see the reasons why Dr. Sloboda can't see why the public is very concerned on all this story and demand to know. Is not this the same reason behind Iraq Body Count?

Best wishes,
Gabriele Zamparini

***************************************************************************

NEW REPLY FROM LES ROBERTS TO JOHN SLOBODA:

Dear Dr. Sloboda,

I hope that this will be the last of these exchanges as I get depressed at the world debating two year-old data rather than focusing energies on the problems of the present.

In response to your comments:
1) Fine. Those other journalists had contacted me about your "Speculation" paper and I had refused to provide my opinion at the time. They deserved a response given that you had brought other media sources into the discussion.
2) You seem to have misunderstood. The information exists in the NEJM to reasonably calculate a violent death rate with fewer assumptions than are needed to interpret the IBC data set. What I said is that no daily violent death rate was provided by any of the sources cited in my various articles and op-eds. Assumptions and calculations were needed for all. Your focus on the single article written by the US military (and would be most predisposed to objecting to these interpretations) is deceptive.
3) I have written many articles and all have displayed errors in the months or years after publication. Virtually all were grammatical or trivial including this one. The date error I discussed does not alter the conclusions or points made and is not worthy of pestering an editor. I will correct the minor errors in that table before using the information in the future.

Finally, I would ask you to think of the obscenity of your comment three. You have been given evidence that you have been publicly and repeatedly speculating about the number of deaths in Iraq and your speculation is perhaps 1/10th of reality. You have expressed not the slightest contrition or interest in correcting your errors. And...you are worried about correcting the dates in a table to show instead of
being the lowest of 6 estimates for the first 3 years you were only the lowest for the first year! Is this an attempt to serve the people of
Iraq or the people of IBC?

Sincerely,

Les Roberts

a reply to Observer’s foreign affairs editor, Peter Beaumont

"And so, Gabriele Zamparini, Joe Emersberger, Mr Bombastic, David Cromwell and David Edwards, David Sketchley, Rasputin, and Informationist, email if you must; my finger will be ready on the delete button." - Observer’s foreign affairs editor, Peter Beaumont

There are enough people in this country and in this world who CAN read emails, articles and books and many fingers have already been busy to write, communicate, express our ideas and opinions and inform and tell the truth...

Mr. Beaumont's finger must have been really busy in these years!

Best wishes,
Gabriele Zamparini

Darkness and Light

Darkness and Light
When international law and science are silenced, the only outcome is darkness
By Gabriele Zamparini (*)

Introduction

There was a time when the arbitrary act of the powerful was the unquestioned rule and the abuse of the prince was called the ‘art of government’. The word ‘justice’ was used to describe the prince’s magnanimity or the reward for the suffering of this life, because… justice is not of this world.

Centuries of darkness and misery are now called the history of civilization.

During this history, women and men have constantly rebelled and struggled to bring about freedom, hope and justice in this life. Because of their appeal to Reason they have always paid the highest price. Humiliation, prison, torture and death have not succeeded in killing the human spirit, despite the ‘art of government’ developed to the sophisticated levels of today’s propaganda.

International law and science are among the most important achievements of this human struggle. Though both are ‘works in progress’ and too often conditioned by that ‘art of government’ they were originally born to limit, we need to strongly support them in these times of darkness.

International law

After WWII

“THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights… of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained… AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest…” (1)

On 20 March 2003 the governments of the United States and United Kingdom broke their solemn pledge [as they had also done with 2001 bombing of Afghanistan and the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in the Balkans] with the invasion of the sovereign country of Iraq, “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter” according to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. (2) The darkness that they brought to the Iraqi people has already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of human lives and contaminated that land with nuclear and chemical wastes for thousands of years to come.

The crime perpetrated by the Bush and Blair’s alliance is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes [Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha, etc.] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." (3)

The art of government has denied this basic truth to the people of the world (THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS) through that sophisticated propaganda apparatus that hypocritically calls itself “mainstream media”.

“If there is one thing that has come out clearly in the last few days, it is not that the corporate media supports the global corporate project; it IS the global corporate project” said Indian writer and activist Arundathi Roy at a World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) press conference, where she served as jury chairperson.

The WTI has been one of the most important achievements in the recent history of that human struggle to bring about freedom, hope and justice in this life. The guilty silence by the corporate media on the WTI and its international law implications is deafening and still going on without shame.

When I recently challenged BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson on the international law issues related to the invasion of Iraq and entreated him to report on the WTI, he wrote back:

“I promise you I stand wholeheartedly on the principles that we should not forgive or forget acts which are against international law, and that we should ensure that international law is upheld. These things are matters of conscience. But I can't quite see why they oblige me to report news which is an entire year old.” (4)

Where was the BBC a year ago?

The British media watchdog Media Lens wrote:

“We also contacted the World Tribunal on Iraq [WTI] for their response. Communications coordinator Caroline Muscat told us WTI had invited the BBC World Service correspondent in Istanbul, Jonny Dymond, to attend the Tribunal's hearings. She helped to set up interviews and provide footage: "we did our best to meet his needs".

Dymond confirmed to us that he attended the opening press conference, and was present on the first day of the 5-day proceedings (email from Jonny Dymond to Media Lens, July 14, 2005). This resulted in a news story on the BBC World Service lasting 24 seconds, and a longer report of about 90 seconds in length. These reports failed to mention the Tribunal's finding that the BBC, and other named, mainstream media, bears "special responsibility for promoting the lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction". (5)

Director BBC News Helen Boaden’s comments are revealing:

“Thank you for your email criticising the BBC for lack of coverage of the World Tribunal on Iraq. We have received numerous complaints on this subject in different parts of the BBC and - after careful consideration of the matter - the following is the BBC response, which I am sending on behalf of the BBC. The subjects under discussion at the Istanbul meeting are indeed important and many of the topics are matters which the BBC has examined persistently and regularly across our outlets. There are many conferences which the BBC does not cover and - given finite resources - we take the view that what is important is that a full range of issues is aired. (…)

"Turning to the agenda of the World Tribunal on Iraq, the BBC has examined events in Iraq from many angles, including the legal framework; the role of the UN; international relations; the conduct of coalition forces and the human rights violations at Abu Graib; the controversy over Guantanamo Bay. But unlike the WTI which takes the war in Iraq as unjust as its premise, the BBC must be open-minded and impartial in its approach.” (Ibidem)

When the WTI’s Jury of Conscience from 10 different countries was hearing the testimonies of 54 members of the Panel of Advocates who came from across the world, including Iraq, the United States and the United Kingdom (6) the BBC together with all the other state-corporate media were working very hard for that sophisticated propaganda apparatus so that people could be brainwashed and neutralized with an endless repetition of lies and nonsense: WMD, War on Terror, Axis of Evil, Exporting Democracy & Human Rights Enterprise, Iraqi Freedom, Civilized World and the many al-Zarqawi type bogeymen. The mechanism is not different from selling cars, toothpaste, toilet paper or a US’ president; it’s called the Public Relations industry and it’s used by the ‘art of government’ to control our will and manufacture that fake consent in their travesty of democracy.

Science

Four hundred years ago the great Galileo was humiliated and forced to repudiate his science by the power of the time, the Catholic Church. Once again, the sin was his appeal to Reason. Once again, the prince felt threatened and showed its ferocious face.

Four hundreds years later science and Reason are still feared by the powers that be.

On 29 October 2004, the highly respected British medical journal The Lancet published a study conducted by some of the most important scientists in the field from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Columbia University School of Nursing and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.

‘Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey’ reads:

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) (7)

The same study reads:

"The researchers found that the majority of deaths were attributed to violence, which were primarily the result of military actions by Coalition forces. Most of those killed by Coalition forces were women and children... Eighty-four percent of the [violent] deaths were reported to be caused by the actions of Coalition forces and 95 percent of those deaths were due to air strikes and artillery." (8)

The lead author of the study, Les Roberts, wrote this past February:

“When I presented these results to about thirty Pentagon employees last fall, one came up to me afterwards and said, "We have dropped about 50,000 bombs, mostly on insurgents hiding behind civilians. What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen?" Our survey team's 100,000 death estimate for the first 18 months after the U.S. led-invasion equates to about 101 coalition-attributed violent deaths per day.” (9)

As in the Galileo’s case four centuries earlier, the prince felt threatened and showed its ferocious face. Immediately a campaign from Washington and London started to discredit the Lancet study and its authors. Just to focus on the most “liberal” British newspaper, the Independent:

“However, this number is only the central point of a range that extends from 8,000 to 194,000. This huge disparity was mocked ignorantly by one American commentator as ‘not an estimate, it's a dartboard‘. It was also defended, equally ignorantly, by the editor of The Lancet, who said: ‘It's highly probable the figure is 98,000. Anything more or less is much less probable.’ Both wrong. What the figures say is that there is a 95 per cent chance that the true figure lies between 8,000 and 194,000... It is statistically respectable, which is why The Lancet article passed its peer reviews, but it produces estimates hedged about with great uncertainty.

And there are good reasons for thinking that the true figure is towards the lower end of The Lancet's range.” (‘We should be counting the dead in Iraq, but let’s not get the figures out of proportion like this,’ John Rentoul , The Independent on Sunday, December 10, 2004)


“The Iraqi Body Count figure is probably much too low, because US military tactics ensure high civilian losses. American firepower, designed to combat the Soviet army, cannot be used in built-up areas without killing or injuring many civilians. Nevertheless a study published in The Lancet, estimating that 100,000 civilians had died in Iraq, appears to be too high.” (‘Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with impunity,’ Patrick Cockburn, The Independent on Sunday, April 24, 2005)


[the Lancet findings has been reached] “by extrapolating from a small sample... While never completely discredited, those figures were widely doubted”. (‘The true measure of the US and British failure,’ Leader, The Independent, July 20, 2005)


“even Iraq Body Count, an anti-war campaign, puts the total attributable to coalition forces at under 10,000, rather than the figure with an extra zero that is the common misconception of anti-war propaganda”. (‘Islam, blood and grievance,' John Rentoul, The Independent, July 24, 2005)

And this even though the Financial Times, on November 19, 2004 had already written:

“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)

Completely ignored by the state-corporate media, there is also an excellent article published by the Chronicle for Higher Education on January 27, 2005. This article reads:

"Les [Roberts] 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." (10)

When challenged about the Lancet study, the BBC wrote:

“The figures it details are now around one year old where as [‘whereas’, presumably] those produced by Iraq Body Count are continually updated.” [and] “We do not usually use the Lancet's figure in standard news stories because it is so far out of line with other studies on the same issue. There are also some questions over the validity of the Lancet study in the case of measuring casualties in Iraq. The technique of sampling and extrapolating from samples has been criticised because the pattern of violence in Iraq has been so uneven. In this particular news story, the Iraq Body Count figure is used because it is the most recent study on the issue.” (11)

Too old too mention? Does this sound familiar?

Again Media Lens points out in its alert:

A perfect example of this masking effect was provided by the Independent’s Andy McSmith on March 4. McSmith reported that the war in Iraq “has cost the lives of 103 British troops, 2,300 US soldiers, and up to 30,000 Iraqis”. (McSmith, ‘Blair: “God will be my judge on Iraq“’, The Independent, March 4, 2006; http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article349125.ece)

McSmith was challenged by activist Gabriele Zamparini of The Cat’s Dream (http://thecatsdream.com). Zamparini asked:

“What’s the source of that number, ‘up to 30,000 Iraqis‘? Were you referring to Mr Bush’s ‘30,000, more or less‘ ? Were you referring to the numbers provided by Iraq Body Count?” (Forwarded to Media Lens, March 6, 2006)

McSmith responded:

“Dear Gabriele

“The source of the 30,000 figure was Iraq Body Count. I am aware of the criticism that it is a 'passive' source of information, in that it does not send canvassers out to do random sampling, but it is respected and reliable.
There has been a lot written about the Lancet study, which was professionally conducted but under difficult conditions, but which necessarily relied on a small sample with a wide margin or error. They estimated 8,000-194,000 'excess deaths', and put the probable total at 98,000. This included increases in infant mortality, traffic accidents etc, with 60% directly attributable to the violence. It is the small sample and very wide margin of error that makes people nervous about the Lancet figure.

Thank you for the email

Andy McSmith” (Forwarded to Media Lens, March 6, 2006) (12)

The British media watchdog Media Lens (13) drew BBC and Iraq Body Count’s ire upon them for the unforgivable sin of appealling to Reason and asking questions.

IBC’s co-founder and Oxford Research Group’s Executive Director John Sloboda gave an interview to “respectable media” [his words] the BBC, where he says:

“Their behaviour is far worse than most of our right-wing or pro-war critics, who, on the whole, have behaved rather more honourably. These people, I trust them less than just about anyone else in the world, and they would have to do 50 to 100 times more in order to regain my trust. (…) They like the sense of being a beleaguered minority. What's most chilling is if you look at people's allegiance to much more dangerous causes than either of our critics are adopting. This is also the mindset that draws angry young men towards terrorism. And it's ultimately self-destructive.” (14)

Sloboda’s words must have impressed many honest people, both in the corporate media and in the anti-war movement, if the Lancet study continues to be buried together with those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians our governments went to ‘liberate’ - bringing with them a small army of “embedded journalists”.

Despite personal honesty, good will and sacrifice of most of these journalists, they can’t see, can’t report and can’t do their job properly, if we have to believe BBC’s Jim Muir from Baghdad: “Of course we cannot operate freely - there is a war going on, in which we are at definite risk from both sides”. (15) Remember? The truth is the first casualty of war!

This “embedded condition” together with other kind of pressures and the institutional role of the state-corporate media are all parts of that propaganda apparatus used by the prince in its “art of government”.

Dahr Jamail, a seriously independent journalist recently wrote:

On November 19, 2005, the day of the Haditha Massacre, al-Jazeera had long since been banned from operating in Iraq. The station forced to conduct its war reporting from a desk in Doha, Qatar, was doing so via telephone. Two Iraqis worked diligently to cover the US occupation of Iraq through a loose network of contacts within Iraq. Defying the US-imposed extreme challenges, al-Jazeera, by dint of its responsible reporting, had the entire Haditha scoop as soon as it occurred, which they shared with Western and other media outlets, while the latter were content to participate in delaying the story nearly four months by regurgitating unverified military releases.

Two days after the massacre, DahrJamailiraq.com was the only free place on the Internet that carried al-Jazeera's report translated into English (it could be viewed at MidEastWire.com for a fee).

The anchorperson for al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, interviewed journalist Walid Khalid in Baghdad. Khalid's report, translated by MidEastWire.com, was as follows:

Yesterday evening, an explosive charge went off under a US Marines vehicle in the al-Subhani area, destroying it completely. Half an hour later, the US reaction was violent. US aircraft bombarded four houses near the scene of the incident, causing the immediate death of five Iraqis. Afterward, the US troops stormed three adjacent houses where three families were living near the scene of the explosion. Medical sources and eyewitnesses close to these families affirmed that the US troops, along with the Iraqi Army, executed 21 persons; that is, three families, including nine children and boys, seven women, and three elderly people. (...)

It wasn't until four months after the event that the Western corporate media started to straighten out the story. On March 19, 2006, it was Time Magazine that "broke" the Haditha story in a piece titled "Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha." The primary sources for this piece were a video shot by an Iraqi journalism student produced the day after the massacre and interviews conducted with witnesses. Another glaring evidence of how a few simple interviews with Iraqis and some readily available photographs and video can drastically correct the glaring errors in the Western media's representations of the occupation. (…)

There are countless other stories which the US corporate media has deliberately delayed from their reportage and which may never reach the wide US audience that they deserve. It is necessary to ask, when will the corporate media report on stories such as the following: (...) (16)

Why is it important to know? asked Les Roberts in his February 2006 article “Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?”:

The casualty count is significant for many reasons. There are, of course, moral considerations. Is the way we wage war now indiscriminate with regard to non-combatants? Is the rhetoric about "precision" in our airborne weaponry masking a darker reality of unnecessary carnage on the ground? Avoidable killing of non-combatants is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, regardless of the actions of the insurgency. And the possibility that the Coalition forces could be responsible for as many as 200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths or more would likely alter the political mood in the United States with respect to the legitimacy of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." (see note 9)

In one of my e-mails to BBC’s John Simpson, there is this paragraph:

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)

Even though I had not mentioned Iraq Body Count at all in my e-mail to BBC’s Simpson, Iraq Body Count's Joshua Dougherty posted this message on Media Lens’ message board:

Not to mention too Bob [another messageboard poster], that the specific claim he keeps circulating (or at least the speculation from which it was derived, the "factor of five or ten" nonsense) has already been retracted by Roberts (though several other errors remain in the analysis uncorrected).

Gabriele wouldn't know this either, because he's sticking with "science" - ie: whatever inaccurate or untested speculations might be made by selectively chosen "experts" who might utter things Gabriele wants to hear. (17)

I sent the first paragraph of IBC’s Dougherty’s comment to Les Roberts, asking him if it was true that he had “retracted” what Dougherty calls “nonsense”. This is Les Roberts’ reply:

I wrote a chapter in a HPN [Humanitarian Practice Network] paper and in a table, I said the IBC count was 17 deaths per day over the period 3/1/03 – 2/1/05. That was wrong. The count was 17 during 2003 but went up later and I had the wrong dates. That was unfortunate. As reported at that time, the IBC number was actually around 26 or 27 per day over the first 18 months of occupation that spanned the period of the Lancet study (the reason I cannot pin it down is because as IBC learns of past deaths, it seems that they go back and revise the numbers which is wonderful in terms of science, but diminishes the apparent contrast that occurred at that time). The NGO Coordinating Committee for Iraq recorded 50 deaths per day through their NGO network over the same time period and our study estimated that there were 101 deaths per day when we excluded Anbar Province. Thus, this does not change the basic conclusion that IBC was estimating a rate far lower than the ground-based evaluations.

Thus, the statement below ["the specific claim he keeps circulating (or at least the speculation from which it was derived, the "factor of five or ten" nonsense) has already been retracted by Roberts (though several other errors remain in the analysis uncorrected)."] is both in spirit and in fact incorrect.

IBC is addressing mortality studies: a well-founded field in the medical sciences. Iraq Body Count’s study has not been subject to review or verification by knowledgeable scientific researchers nor published by any scientific journal. Why not?

The British and US media (let alone those responsible for that carnage) consistently favour IBC's figures instead of a scientific reviewed study. Why?

If we do not want to return to that time when the arbitrary act of the powerful was the unquestioned rule and the abuse of the prince was called the ‘art of government’ we must uphold international law and defend the role of science.

Post Scriptum

In these same minutes the Guardian Unlimited has published the last fatigues by Observer’s foreign affairs editor, Peter Beaumont:

- a “review” (sic!) of Noam Chomsky’s last book “Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy”, presented to the Guardian-Observer’s readers as a “A noxious form of argument: Noam Chomsky has allowed bile and rhetoric to replace intellectual rigour in his latest diatribe against the present United States administration, says Peter Beaumont” (18)

- a pre-emptive strike, “Microscope on Medialens: After taking Noam Chomsky to task over his new book, Fa