An old Zionist dream: the partition of Iraq

An old Zionist dream: the partition of Iraq
By Gabriele Zamparini

Finally the Imperial Senate calls for Iraq's partition.

US lawmakers voted Wednesday to split Iraq into a loose federation of sectarian-based regions and urged President George W Bush to press Iraqi leaders to agree.

The proposal came from Senator Joseph Biden, the smart-ass who heads the chamber's foreign relations committee and is running for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination.

A few months ago, Sen. Biden, interviewed by Shalom TV, an American mainstream Jewish cable television network, called Israel "the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East". "I am a Zionist," stated Senator Biden. "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist."

We know the Israel Lobby is not a very convincing thesis, at least for Noam Chomsky. So, let’s talk about coincidences.

In 1982, Israel Shahak, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, wrote:

The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the "best" that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: "The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part" (Ha'aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.

Israel Shahak’s The Zionist Plan for the Middle East is based on Oded Yinon's A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties, an essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

Here two passages from Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties:

(…) Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi'ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren't for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq's future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi'ites in Iraq view as their natural leader. (…)

(…) Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization (…)

Just coincidences, of course...

The New Iraq Horror Show

"I always thought it was very important that Saddam Hussein be deposed." - Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006

The puppet's guts

The CNN informed us, Iraqi president urges release of Iranian detainee:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has blasted the United States for the arrest Thursday of an Iranian and called for his immediate release. (…) "Therefore, I express to you our outrage for these American forces arresting this Iranian civil official visitor without informing or cooperating with the government of the Kurdistan region, which means insult and disregard for its rights," he wrote. "I call for his release immediately in the interest of the Iraq Kurdistan region and the Iranian-Iraqi relations."

There are tens of thousands of Iraqis caged in concentration camps by the US and its puppet regime backed by Iran. Among them, about one thousand Iraqi children, as young as 10 years old. Emotionally, physically and sexually abused, these men, women and children are still waiting for the puppet’s outrage.

Perhaps if the Socrates of the Third Millenium gave these Iraqis an Iranian passport, Talabani could then blast the US and urge for their release. Surely at that point those forgotten unpeople would make CNN’s news.

The dwarf's guts

The Los Angeles Times reported:

"The U.N. stands ready to broaden its activity in support of the people and government of Iraq," he said in a meeting co-chaired by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and attended by senior officials from Iraq, the United States, Britain and many of Iraq's neighbors. "This is a responsibility I take very seriously."

In the middle of a genocide the UN continues to ignore, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s words are beyond contempt. No surprise of course, since it was the United Nations to impose the notorious genocidal embargo against Iraq. Do you remember?

The UN sanctions against Iraq, wanted by the governments of the US and the UK and imposed on 6 August 1990 (HIROSHIMA DAY) ended only with the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. In 1996, Madeleine Albright – US Ambassador at the United Nations and soon to become Secretary of State under President Clinton – said about half million children murdered by those sanctions: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." And the sanctions went on.

Those sanctions killed a terrifying number of innocent people. One million? Two millions? Will we ever know? Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1997-98) said: “I had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that had effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.” After thirty-four years with the United Nations, he resigned in protest over the effects of the embargo on the civilian population. [Source: The New Rulers of the World, by John Pilger, Verso, 2002]

Hans Von Sponeck, who had succeeded Denis Halliday as UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1998-2000), resigned on February 13, 2000. He asked: “How long should the civilian population of Iraq be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?” Like Halliday, he had been with the United Nations for more than thirty years. [Source: Ibidem]

To understand the New Iraq one needs to remember that genocidal embargo, as well as the First Gulf War.

The New Iraq: Genocide & Cholera Freedom

A few days ago I titled my blog Innocence in the Time of Cholera. A few days later IRIN reported: Heath services struggle to prevent cholera spreading.

The New Scientist reports: "A cholera epidemic has been on the cards since Iraqi water treatment plants were destroyed in the 1991 Gulf war. In 2003 the WHO reported that the UN trade embargo had prevented repairs and as a result. Now one of these outbreaks seems to be spreading out of control."

For an interesting view from inside Iraq, read this Iraqi blogger

As the British liberal Independent would say, "sowing and watering the seeds of democracy". By the way, the "anti-war" Independent hasn't given yet to its readers the results of a study conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB). The ORB's study suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age). You may listen to an interview with Johnny Heald, co-author of the study, on the US National Public Radio

The British media watchdog MediaLens informed us that Gilbert Burnham, MD and Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Les Roberts, Associate Professor at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, submitted [Note: submitted does not mean published] this op-ed last Thursday to three US papers: Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option

Leila Fadel is the Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers. Read her latest report from Baghdad. From "Inside Iraq", a blog updated by Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers, you may read Now we have Article 41, an interesting update on women rights in liberated Iraq.

Remember the infamous debaathification? Baathists, Sunni and Shia alike, Muslim and Christian alike, have been hunt, tortured and killed by the US Occupation, its puppet government of sectarian warlords taking orders from their Iranian masters, the sectarian pro-Iranian militias, especially the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army, and yes, with the help of Iran as well.

This Baathist-hunt in occupied Iraq has been part of a ferocious ethnic cleansing against Sunni, and a vicious, systematic mass murder campaign against nationalists, the Iraqi resistance and its sympathizers (or those perceived as such), Palestinians (while IRAN claims to be seriously concerned for the faith of the Palestinian People, the backed Iranian militias operating in Iraq have been hunting and killing the Palestinians of Iraq. Read also here), against gay… and whoever doesn’t conform to the New Iraq.

According to Amnesty International, there are about 4.2 million displaced Iraqis, 2.2 million of whom are within Iraq, with the vast majority of the rest in Syria and Jordan.

I have already linked and suggested this excellent article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., the president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics. Rockwell writes:

The US has unleashed bloodshed in Iraq that is rarely known even in countries we think of as violent and torn by civil strife. It is amazing to think that this has occurred in what was only recently a liberal and civilized country by the region’s standards. This was a country that had a problem with immigration, particularly among the well-educated and talented classes. They went to Iraq because it was the closest Arab proxy to Western-style society that one could find in the area.

It was the US that turned this country into a killing field. Why won’t we face this? Why won't we take responsibility? The reason has to do with this mysterious thing called nationalism, which makes an ideological religion of the nation's wars. We are god-like liberators. They are devil-like terrorists. No amount of data or contrary information seems to make a dent in this irreligious faith. So it is in every country and in all times. Here is the intellectual blindness that war generates.

The title of Rockwell's article, None Dare Call It Genocide.

This is the New Iraq, the result of that Supreme International Crime, the war of aggression waged by the United States, the United Kingdom and their despicable Coalition of the Willing. This is the New Iraq, the result of the infamous political process and its sectarian, death squads government whose puppets take orders from their American and Iranian masters. This is the New Iraq, as annihilated by the Western liberators and those sectarian militias imported directly from (Badr Brigades) and backed by (Mahdi Army) Iran, a country that actively participated to the supreme international crime, the war of aggression against Iraq. This is the New Iraq, a country that had to be wiped out in the geopolitical game for the control of “the greatest strategic prize in history”. Welcome to the New Middle East...

Flashbacks from The Cat's Blog

5 September 2006:

For these two subjects, Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army and Iraq Body Count, pass the truth about the horror that the Iraqi People have been forced to live since the new crusaders invaded their country. On both these subjects, vast sectors of the international anti-war movement and the so-called “left” have been silent at best when not actively cooperating with the propaganda machine.

14 November 2006:

Freedom! Freedom! Democracy! Democracy! will write the Imperial historians, raping history as the barbarians have raped the Iraqi children. But those children know better. Four hyenas, the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Iran have destroyed a country that could have been a power in the region and a model for the Arab world. The vultures of the international community have been cooperating and watching the bloodbath waiting to share the rich carcass. The control of the energy resources is just part of the whole picture; Iraq had to be destroyed to allow the so-called reshaping of the Middle East. The notorious “political process” has been a formidable Trojan horse that forced the Iraqi People into a civil war. Far from being a failure, the main mission of this bloody project has been accomplished. Iraq as we knew it has gone, probably forever. God bless America…

2 January 2007:

Who remembers now how all this started? The rotten lies of Tony Blair’s “45 minutes” and Condoleezza Rice’s “mushroom cloud” have been used to justify the supreme international crime, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a defenseless country that had never attacked the United States, that did not have any weapons of mass destruction, that did not have any ties to al-Qaida, that had no connection to the September 11 attacks... About one million Iraqis have been slaughtered, many more millions displaced and a civil war orchestrated. Finally Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic of Iraq, was assassinated...

30 January 2007:

Many intellectuals and activists of the Imperial anti-war movement started immediately after the invasion to legitimize the “supreme international crime” by supporting the so-called “political process”, a Trojan horse studied to destroy Iraq and force its people into a civil war. Those notorious sectarian Iraqi elections, based on religion and ethnicity, far from being forced on the US by the non-violent resistance of some clerics, were part of the plan to install a quisling government, getting the approval of the vultures and hyenas of the international community and preparing the bases for the eventual partition of the country. All this has been crystal clear all along as crystal clear has been the use of the sectarian militias in support of this project. Why has there been so much support for the “political process” and for one of New Iraq’s most deadly death squads, Motqada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, in so many quarters of the Western left and anti-war movement?

Do you remember the barbaric lynching and assassination of the president of the Republic of Iraq? Do you remember that crows' sinister caw?

Again Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, may help us to understand better:

"And so, getting him out of office or getting him out of the control position he was in, I thought, was essential. And whether that be done by one means or another was not as important, but it’s clear to me that were there not the oil resources in Iraq, the whole picture of how that part of the Middle East developed would have been different."

The Oracle Iraq Body Count

The Oracle Iraq Body Count
By Gabriele Zamparini

The Toronto Star informed us today:

"The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher," he [John Sloboda, professor of psychology at Keele University, and a co-founder of IBC] told me, referring to the other studies.

Question: How can a professor of psychology who collects Iraqi deaths through media reports possibly know what the death toll could be? We are in prophecy territory here. Don’t take me wrong; I love mythology and I find the oracles some of the most fascinating and suggestive figures in that kind of literature. But I prefer science, especially when in Iraq we are responsible for a GENOCIDE!

The British media watchdog Medialens wrote in its latest alert:

IBC only collects records of violent civilian deaths reported by two different (mainly Western) media sources operating in Iraq. Epidemiologists report that this type of study typically captures around 5 per cent of deaths during high levels of violence, such as exists in Iraq. By contrast, the Lancet studies provide figures for all deaths - violent and non-violent, civilian and military, reported and unreported.

A few days ago I wrote about the brilliant endorsement of Iraq Body Count coming from The Weekly Standard, the voice of the Neo-Con in Washington and whose Editor, William Kristol, is also Chairman of the Project for the New American Century.

Today, from the pages of the Washington Post, another great endorsement of Iraq Body Count comes from The Fact Checker’s Michael Dobbs. Iraq Body Count this time is used against MoveOn.org, not a radical organization exactly. [UPDATE: Senate Votes to Condemn MoveOn for Ad Attacking General Petraeus]

From the same Washington Post, take a look at a superb exercise in misleading that’s become a classic. A fancy “widget” reads:

Iraqi Civilian (estimates [sic]) 72,596 minimum count – 79,187 maximum count [last update September 18, 2007]

Finally, an update from Opinion Research Business (ORB), the polling company that published last week the study suggesting a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

The ORB website informs us:

September 2007 - Iraq Casualties Poll Update

ORB to conduct additional interviews in rural Iraq.

We have received a lot of interest in the recent 'casualties' poll that we carried out in conjunction with our local partners in Iraq - IIACSS. Our survey was carried out throughout Iraq and looked at the incidence of civilian deaths since 2003 - together with Iraqi's views on the displacement of people.

As with many other activities in Iraq polling has its own restraints and it is simply too dangerous for interviewers to operate in some areas. Meanwhile local authorities prevent interviewers from working in certain towns and districts. This means that we cannot gather opinion from the more volatile areas but, at the same time we have, so far, also limited coverage in rural districts. Both of these factors mean that any estimate of deaths will remain just that - an estimate.

While, for obvious reasons, we cannot boost our representation of people living in Iraq's most violent areas we have decided - following feedback from readers of our poll - to conduct a more extensive survey of rural areas to see how this may impact on our estimate. We are in the process of conducting additional interviews in rural areas of Iraq. Once this data has been verified and merged with our current data set we will post it here on the ORB website. We aim to be in a position to release this data within ten days i.e. first week of October.

Since the media have almost completely ignored last week ORB poll, one wonders the meaning of the first line in the press release above: “We have received a lot of interest in the recent 'casualties' poll…”

IBC vs. Lancet - the struggle for the truth continues

Dear Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus, Totonto Star

I have read with great interest your article, How many civilians have died?

First of all, I want to thank you for reporting on the ORB poll and its results and also for writing about the study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health published last year.

You write:

Opinion Research Business conducted face-to-face interviews last month with a representative sample of 1,461 Iraqis.

Nearly one in two said their households had suffered at least one death by violence. Many reported multiple deaths. Projecting the findings on to Iraq's 4 million households, ORB estimated the death toll at more than a million.

The methodology is not universally accepted, though variations of it have been used to measure mortality figures in the conflicts in Congo, Kosovo, Sudan, etc.

Questions were also raised last year about a study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, done in partnership with Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.

Surveyors knocked on 1,849 doors asking if the household had suffered a death by violence. Projecting the responses nationally, the study put the toll at 654,965.

About a third of the deaths were attributed to coalition forces. Responsibility for 45 per cent of the deaths couldn't be determined.

The Iraq Body Count count, updated daily, stood yesterday at "between 72,596 and 79,187."

The group, run by academics and peace activists, insists on corroborating every death from two reliable sources – police, hospital and mortuary records, media and NGO reports.

The estimate is "irrefutable," says John Sloboda, professor of psychology at Keele University, and a co-founder of IBC. "Nobody can say that fewer people have died. There are many deaths that go unrecorded – kidnappings, assassinations, disappearances, etc.

"The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher," he told me, referring to the other studies.

When you write “Questions were also raised last year about a study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health”, probably your readers should have been informed that that study was conducted by the world leaders in the field of epidemiology and published as peer-reviewed scientific papers in the world's leading medical journal, the Lancet.

Knowing this, I was surprised to find in your article the view of Iraq Body Count’s founders John Sloboda and Hamit Dardagan but not the view of those scientists who conducted the peer review study published by the British medical journal The Lancet. Don’t you agree with me that had you spoken also with those scientists and reported their view in your article, you would have offered a fairer and more balanced piece to your readers?

I will CC this e-mail to Les Roberts, co-author of the 2004 and 2006 Lancet reports. In case you wish to write a follow up on this matter, you have his e-mail address now.

Thank you again for writing on this important issue. I really appreciate it.

Respectfully,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

***

Reply from Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus:

I suppose every columnist should talk to everyone, but this is not always possible. I was not writing a news story but a column.
Nonetheless, I would strongly urge you, or whoever, to write a lettertoeded@thestar is reponse, so as to keep various viewpoints going and up for debate. Am all for it.
With letters, brevity (300 words or less) and speed are of the essence, obviously.
Thanks for reading, and writing.

***

As suggested by Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus...

Dear Editor,

I have read with great interest Haroon Siddiqui’s How many civilians have died?

First of all, I want to thank you for reporting on the ORB poll and its results and also for writing about the study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health published last year.

Siddiqui writes:

“Questions were also raised last year about a study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, done in partnership with Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. (…) "The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher," he [Iraq Body Count’s John Sloboda] told me, referring to the other studies.”

The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health study was conducted by the world leaders in the field of epidemiology and published as peer-reviewed scientific papers in the world's leading medical journal, the Lancet. Knowing this, I was surprised to find in your article the view of Iraq Body Count’s founders John Sloboda and Hamit Dardagan but not the view of those scientists who conducted the peer review study published by the British medical journal The Lancet. Don’t you agree with me that had you spoken also with those scientists and reported their view in your article, you would have offered a fairer and more balanced piece to your readers?

Thank you

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

***

UPDATE 30 SEPTEMBER 2007

Dear Haroon Siddiqui,

I have just read your latest article, Seeds of terrorism sown in killing fields of Iraq

Very well done!

As I wrote you about ten days ago, now I think you have offered a fairer and more balanced piece to your readers.

I hope many other mainstream journalists will follow your example.

Thank you

Best wishes,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

Innocence in the Time of Cholera

Innocence in the Time of Cholera
By Gabriele Zamparini

And finally cholera broke out in Baghdad.

Nothing to worry about of course! The New York Times won’t ruin your breakfast and the BBC will respect your supper. Too much violence on TV already; better protect the child within our sophisticated intellect from these unnecessary details. Nobody needs to know those 1.2 million Iraqi deaths as a result of the illegal war of aggression in 2003. Numbers don’t count, do they?

What a formidable instrument is our brain. We can’t deal with the responsibility of genocide so denial becomes a self-defense instinct, at least for those still in good faith. But are we really innocent?

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is the president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics. He recently wrote:

“The US has unleashed bloodshed in Iraq that is rarely known even in countries we think of as violent and torn by civil strife. It is amazing to think that this has occurred in what was only recently a liberal and civilized country by the region’s standards. This was a country that had a problem with immigration, particularly among the well-educated and talented classes. They went to Iraq because it was the closest Arab proxy to Western-style society that one could find in the area. It was the US that turned this country into a killing field. Why won’t we face this? Why won't we take responsibility?”

Rockwell titles his denounce, None Dare Call It Genocide

Maybe the time has come for all of us to put aside our worn out ideological uniforms and to make alliances with all those willing to take responsibility for this abomination unleashed in our name, with our money, from leaders we elected and re-elected.

Maybe it’s time to look into the mirror the great American writer James Baldwin gave us many years ago:

"[T]his is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. (…) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime."

I repeat my call, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon must speak out. Silence is complicity.

Iraq Genocide: Silence is complicity

Iraq Genocide: Silence is complicity
By Gabriele Zamparini

On September 18, the Associated Press sent out the following news item:

IAEA Chief Warns Against Striking Iran
Monday September 17, 2007 1:46 PM
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer

This news item contained the following paragraph, attributed by the AP to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency:

There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 70,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons,'' he told reporters.

The same news item with the same paragraph reported above was widely spread on the Internet.

I wrote on my blog on this yesterday. When I read the 70,000 figure, I thought Mr. ElBaradei had joined the supporters of Iraq Body Count, the British organization whose widely publicized figures coming from reported deaths in the English language media have been used by the warmongers and many in the state-corporate media to downplay the Iraqi genocide.

But a few hours later, the same AP news item above was circulating on the Internet with a different figure. The same paragraph now read:

There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons,'' he told reporters.

At this point there are two different versions of the same AP news item on the Internet; the 70,000 one and the 700,000 one. Some media outlets have changed the 70,000 to 700,000 but others have now the two different versions running together.

These are the facts, so far.

A typo?

Now, if this accident were merely the result of a typo, it would be useful and important to have the official explanation of that coming directly from the AP and from Mr. ElBaradei office. Why?

While the 70,000 figure could have come probably from Iraq Body Count, it would be interesting to know from Mr. ElBaradei where he got that 700,000 figure. In other words, what’s the source of Mr. ElBaradei’s claims that “700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives” in Iraq since the US-led war of aggression?

Furthermore, this 700,000 figure is a GENOCIDE figure and a GENOCIDE figure that has been always rejected by the American and British governments (at least officially) and by most of the mainstream media.

Mohamed ElBaradei is the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a very important agency within the United Nations family. Should we believe that just a few words, like the ones attributed to Mr. ElBaradei by the later AP version, are enough to denounce the Iraqi genocide?

The phrase context would suggest that his words fit well with the 70,000 figure – a figure widely known and accepted by the world leaders and most of the mainstream media – but they sound out of tune with a reality of GENOCIDE that’s been so far denied by those responsible and ignored by the so-called International Community.

A reality whose responsibility falls also upon the state-corporate media that have denied paramount information in a critical and tragic time to the citizens they were supposed to serve and for this crime they have been actively aiding and abetting in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Finally and most importantly, the results of a new ORB poll have been released last Friday. This study suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

The results of this ORB poll are consistent with the results of a study published last year in the British medical journal the Lancet. That study – ignored and discredited by Washington and London and their propaganda spread in many Western mainstream media - estimated 655,000 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war.

There are now three serious scientific studies on mortality in invaded and occupied Iraq showing the ugly truth that too many actors have been successfully working to hide. That ugly truth has a name: GENOCIDE.

Mr. ElBaradei should clarify what he really said and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon must speak out. Silence is complicity.

UPDATE: I have just received the following analysis from David Peterson

To The Cat's Blog:

FYI: It appears that Associated Press has withdrawn from circulation copies of its earliest reports to have attributed the 70,000 figure to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei (e.g., the earliest one by George Jahn, dated September 17, and time-stamped 12:38 PM GMT).

Copies of this earliest AP report no doubt still can be found. But after initially entering circulation based on comments made by ElBaradei on September 17 in Vienna in conjunction with the start of the IAEA's annual conference, it appears that the 70,000 figure was immediately recognized as a mistake, wrongly attributed to ElBaradei. The correct figure to attribute to ElBaradei is 700,000. A big difference.

For several excerpts of various news sources attributing the 700,000 figure to ElBaradei, see below.

On the other hand, anyone interested in observing the commission of the crime of silence on a massive scale ought to take a sweeping look at the U.S. news media's performance these past three days (Sept. 17-19). To date, I can find only seven instances in which ElBaradei's public and extremely important remarks in Vienna that he "would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 inn ocent civilians have lost their lives∑" (George Jahn, AP, Sept. 17), have been reported in the U.S. print media. -- Namely:

"Calm the Iran rhetoric, chief U.N. nuclear inspector urges," Houston Chronicle (TX), September 18, 2007
"Don't Attack Iran, U.N. Official Says," Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), September 18
"UN nuclear inspector urges patience with Iran," Newsday (NY), September 18
"U.N. Inspector Criticizes War Talk," South Florida Sun-Sentinel (FL), September 18
"U.N. nuclear inspector warns against military response to Iran," St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), September 18, 2007
"Inspector warns against anti-Iran 'hype'," Telegraph Herald (IA), September 18
"IAEA Chief Exhorts Iran's Critics to Avoid Threats of Force," Washington Post, September 18

Notice that 100 percent of these print media reports derive from George Jahn's emended report for Associated Press.

Notice, moreover, that although the International Herald Tribune published a long report that correctly quoted ElBaradei's remark about "700,000 innocent civilians [having] lost their lives" ("France wants Europe to be as tough on Iran as the U.S. is," Katrin Bennhold, Sept. 18), the New York Times, the IHT's sister publication, never did.

Notice, last, that during the between 48 and 72 hours since ElBaradei did state that "700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives" in Iraq, it appears that one, and only one, U.S.-based television news service has quoted or referred to this remark: On the very first day (Sept. 17), CNN Your World Today co-anchor Michael Holmes said:

Well, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog is urging everyone to cool it, calm down on the rhetoric. Without specifically mentioning France, the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said any talk of attacking Iran is hype and should be avoided. ElBaradei says there are international rules regarding the use of force and "I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after Iraq where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."


Other than this -- silence.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA
davidepet@comcast.net


Addendum: A select group of excerpts from several print media to have reported ElBaradei's use of the 700,000 figure.


"I would not talk about any use of force," said ElBaradei, noting that only the Security Council can authorize such action. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons." (George Jahn, "IAEA Chief Warns Against Striking Iran," Associated Press, September 17, 2007, 10:10 PM GMT.)

ElBaradei said: "I hope everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation when we see a drama unfolding every day and we have 700,000 people, innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country had nuclear weapons." (Michael Adler, "ElBaradei dismisses Iran war talk as 'hype'," Agence France Presse, September 17, 2007.)

In a perceived riposte, Mr ElBaradei urged caution. "We need to be cool," he told reporters at the IAEA's annual conference in Vienna. "We need not to hype the issue. "I would not talk about any use of force," he said. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons." ("UN Nuclear Boss Warns Warmongers over Iran," The Guardian, September 18, 2007.)

The talk of war with Iran also provoked a reaction from Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna who is brokering the discussions with Iran. ''I would not talk about any use of force'' in the event that Iran obtains nuclear weapons, he said, The Associated Press reported. ''We need to be cool. We need not to hype the issue.'' He continued: ''There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the I! raq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country had nuclear weapons.'' (Katrin Bennhold, "France wants Europe to be as tough on Iran as the U.S. is," International Herald Tribune, September 18, 2007.)

"There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons," he told reporters. (Herb Keinon, "Israel downplays Iranian missile threat," Jerusalem Post, September 18, 2007.)


"I would not talk about any use of force," Mr. ElBaradei told reporters outside an IAEA meeting in Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons." (Steven Edwards, "U.S. targets in range, Iran says; UN nuclear watchdog resists use of force," National Post, September 18, 2007.)

BREAKING NEWS - CORRECTION: Mohamed ElBaradei said 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives in Iraq. Did he really?

The mystery of 70,000 becoming 700,000

Today I had posted a blog entry about an AP via CommonDreams.org about Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that 70,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives in Iraq. A few hours later, the same AP via other media outlets reported that ElBaradei had said 700,000.

I checked on Google and with some few friends and it seems there are out there different version of this story. The Guardian for example has both the versions. The 70,000 [Guardian, Monday September 17, 2007 1:46 PM] and the 700,000.

A simple typo or that extra zero was added later...?

The 70,000 could have come from Iraq Body Count. But if it was a typo, where do 700,000 come from? Maybe someone added an extra ZERO later on the day? Just a question...

***

BREAKING NEWS: I had posted the news below taking it from CommonDreams. I have now just checked the same news from an AP printed on SFGate Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency:

"I would not talk about any use of force," said ElBaradei, noting that only the Security Council can authorize such action. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

This was the original blog entry posted when I had read the news from CommonDreams

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, joins the Iraq Body Count's supporters:

“There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 70,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons,” he told reporters.

Now I know, he doesn't read this blog for sure! Does anyone out there know his e-mail address so that this "email crusader" may send Mr. Mohamed ElBaradei a couple of e-mails?

As I have already written:

Prof. John Sloboda, Co-founder, analyst and press spokesperson IRAQ BODY COUNT: Please, shut down your website!

Gabriele Zamparini asks for a correction to ZNet's Michael Albert

Dear Michael Albert, ZNet Editor
CC Prof. John Sloboda, IBC founder

On May 02, 2006, ZNet published:

Speculation Is No Substitute: A Defence Of Iraq Body Count Executive Summary
by Hamit Dardagan and John Sloboda and Josh Dougherty
May 02, 2006
Iraq Body Count

At the top of that ZNet page, the article reads: (This document is a summary of the full document available from http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/defended/.)

The Iraq Body Count article published by ZNet reads:

“In an ill-informed and antagonistic campaign spearheaded by the web-based pressure group Media Lens, it has been vehemently claimed that we are grossly undercounting deaths; that we severely underrepresent the deaths caused by the US military; and that we do nothing to advertise these gross errors or to correct them. This article shows the first two claims to be false, and therefore the third claim becomes irrelevant.

Our critics are united by a deep distrust of Western media, and an ardent advocacy of the views of epidemiologist Les Roberts, a co-author of the respected Iraqi mortality study by Johns Hopkins University published in the British medical journal The Lancet in 2004.

The media stand accused by our critics of failing to give the Lancet study the priority it deserves, and for citing IBC figures in preference to it. Our critics demand that we give Lancet preference over our own ongoing work and insist that we have a moral obligation to instruct the media to do the same.

The Lancet study makes an important contribution to knowledge. However, our critics rely on highly misleading and speculative conclusions drawn from that study and its lead author, which this article analyses and rebuts.”

The full document linked to this ZNet article reads: LINK: [PDF]

Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count
Hamit Dardagan,* John Sloboda,† Josh Dougherty.‡ April 2006

Perhaps the most prolific emailer associated with the Media Lens
campaign is one Gabriele Zamparini, who operates his own blog
and regularly takes media outlets and websites to task for their
use of IBC data. Occasionally Zamparini will spot genuine errors
in usage and so is justified in requesting corrections – however
his suggested replacement material itself contains errors such as
those we expose in this paper. And like the Media Lens Editors,
Zamparini is apt to indulge in wildly overblown rhetoric on the
subject of IBC:

“The damage that Iraq Body Count’s figures have done is
huge, terrifying and shocking.”
(“Silence kills and silence is complicity – a ‘follow-up’”. April 14,
2006. http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2006/04/silence-killsand-silence-is_14.htm)

Zamparini further resembles the Media Lens Editors in dodging
requests that he support such startling claims with quantifiable
evidence of actual “damage” done by IBC: http://www.blogger.
com/comment.g?blogID=857 9803&postID=11 45011 9689434334

[and]

One of the campaigns’ most persistent email crusaders, and
regular Media Lens message board users, repeatedly sent this
misinformation to anti-war groups and websites, in the case
below to groups who were using a poster featuring IBC:

“According to Les Roberts … there might be as many as
300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. … I urge you therefore to
reconsider the use of that poster. The difference between
30,000 and 300,000 can no longer be ignored. Using that
poster as well as keep referring to the IBC’s numbers,
would be a betrayal of our share ideals and values of
peace and justice.”
(Gabriele Zamparini – “Iraq: ‘Why is the Left Understating the
Carnage?’”. March 15 , 2006. http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2006/03/iraq-why-is-left-understating-carnage.htm)

A few days before ZNet published this IBC article, linking to the full IBC document, the BBC published an interview with IBC’s founder John Sloboda.

A few excerpts from this interview:

BBC’s question: Your critics claim that your work is a vast undercount, how do you answer that?

IBC’s John Sloboda’s answer: The claim (that our work is a vast undercount) is made basically on the back of some quite shaky extrapolations from a single study that was carried out with a particular methodology in 2004. That is the celebrated Lancet study. (…) Some critics of the Lancet study have said it's like a drunk throwing a dart at a dartboard. It's going to go somewhere, but who knows if that number is the bulls eye. Unfortunately many many people have decided to accept that that 98,000 figure is the truth - or the best approximation to the truth that we have.

(...)

BBC’s question: How would you describe Media Lens?

IBC’s John Sloboda: They are a pressure group that use aggressive and emotionally destructive tactics. On the belief that the gravity of the issues they're dealing with justify that, and also on the belief that that's somehow effective. (…) I think it's because we don't fit into their worldview. The hard left and the hard right, they're both utterly rigid, and the stuff that's going on in the middle, they can't handle. They want certainty. They want something they can latch onto and say - this is what I believe. 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."

As we all know, the new ORB poll suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

There are now three scientific studies that prove that this Iraq Body Count article published by ZNet was part of a smear campaign that nothing had to do with peace, justice and resistance.

Since my name was stained, I ask you therefore to publish this e-mail on the Top Page of ZNet as a correction and a reparation for the damage inflicted upon peace activists and anti-war campaigners that have just been doing their part to highlight the ugly truth of this brutal empire.

As an old time ZNet reader and former [not for my fault] contributor, I am sure ZNet will agree with this request.

Thank you

In solidarity,
Gabriele Zamparini
Editor, The Cat’s Dream

The death of history and the Independent

The front page of today's Independent reads: "2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers".

The Independent's editors responsible for the paper's first page have no idea what they are writing about. Sumer (or Šumer) was the earliest known civilization of the ancient Near East, located in lower Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), from the time of the earliest records in the mid 4th millennium BC until the rise of Babylonia in the late 3rd millennium BC

Uruknet's editor spotted what so kindly called a "typo" and added the following note: [1] of course, it is a typo. Ur and Uruk are 6,000 years old

It's a good article, signed by Robert Fisk who of course is not responsible for the "typos" of the Independent's editors. Fisk writes: "Founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working"

It seems the Independent's editors don't read Fisk.

The article is titled It is the death of history. For some Independent's editors, it never started.

Together with a due correction, I'm sure the Independent will soon offer its readers the new ORB poll which suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

BBC's crimes: actively aiding and abetting in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide

Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News
Steve Herrmann, Editor, News Online

Three days passed since the ORB published its study suggesting a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

The BBC News website, as far as I could see, has not given the news yet!

Three days of deafening silence at BBC. Three days of shame that add to the shame for the active role you had in hiding the truth on the Iraqi genocide to the citizens who pay for your fat salary.

To refresh your memory, just three little examples from your vast and rich repertoire of the horrors:

October 2005 – The BBC ignores the Lancet study. Challenged, the BBC writes:

“The figures [the Lancet study] 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.”

March 2006 – The silence on the Lancet study continues. Challenged, BBC News Online Editor Steve Herrmann writes:

Dear Gabriele,

In response to your email about our story on the Iraq Body Count figures, I would make the point that we reported on this as part of our overall effort to cover the war in Iraq and its consequences as fully as possible across a wide range of coverage.

We reported on the Iraq Body Count (IBC) as a credible attempt available in the public domain to count the civilian casualties of the war. We do not think their count is faultless, and indeed we have pointed out that because it relies on deaths reported by the media, the IBC itself suggests its figures are an underestimate as “many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported”.

The Lancet study is a snapshot taken more than 18 months ago and though the methodology has been widely acknowledged as standard, there has been argument about whether the sampling method is the most appropriate for this kind of survey. By featuring the IBC count of civilian deaths in Iraq we are not seeking to dismiss the Lancet study. We have reported on the latter extensively and refer to it in our report on the IBC.

Yours sincerely
Steve Herrmann

April 2006 - In email sent to Media Lens’ David Cromwell regarding Iraqi civilians deaths, the IBC and the Lancet study, Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News, wrote “I'm not sure if you were copied in on Steve Herrmann's reply to "The Cat's Dream", whose complaint was in similar vein to yours. I agree with his remarks”

Time goes by but there are things never change at the BBC. You have denied paramount information in a critical and tragic time to the citizens you were supposed to serve and for this crime you’ve been actively aiding and abetting in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Resign!

Gabriele Zamparini
London

***

UPDATE: The BBC has now buried the 1.2 million Iraqis slaughtered by the US-led illegal war of aggression, the supreme international crime for which the major Nazi war criminal were hanged in Nuremberg, in the last paragraphs of an article titled 'US contractors in Iraq shootout' [Last Updated: Monday, 17 September 2007, 11:03 GMT 12:03 UK]

These paragraphs read:

Civilian toll

Sunday's violence followed the publication of a survey of Iraqis which suggested that up to 1.2m people might have died because of the conflict in Iraq.

A UK-based polling agency, Opinion Research Business (ORB), said it had extrapolated the figure by asking a random sample of 1,461 Iraqi adults how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.

The results lend weight to a 2006 survey of Iraqi households published by the Lancet, which suggested that about 655,000 Iraqi deaths were "a consequence of the war".

However, these estimates are both far higher than the running total of reported civilian deaths maintained by the campaign group Iraq Body Count which puts the figure at between 71,000 and 78,000.

Please note as Iraq Body Count is again used to deny the Iraqi genocide.

As I have already written:

Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News and Steve Herrmann, Editor, News Online: Resign!

Prof. John Sloboda, Co-founder, analyst and press spokesperson IRAQ BODY COUNT: Please, shut down your website!

Iraq genocide, a new e-mail to United for Peace and Justice, Phyllis Bennis and Michael Albert

UPDATE 18 September 2007: After my correspondence with United for Peace and Justice's Leslie Cagan, Institute for Policy Studies' Phyllis Bennis and ZNet's Michael Albert [please, see below], I have just been informed that United for Peace and Justice has updated its People's Report:

Hi Gabriele,

Just wanted to let you know that UFPJ has updated the People\'s Report, and now uses the Just Foreign Policy number of more than 1 million Iraqis who have died as a result of the invasion and occupation.

Peace,

Susan Chenelle
UFPJ Internet Coordinator

My reply:

Dear Susan,

Your e-mail is a warm ray of sunlight!

Thank you

In solidarity,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

***

Dear Phillys Bennis and Leslie Cagan,
CC Michael Albert,

I hope you all are well.

A few days ago I wrote you bringing to your attention the United for Peace and Justice’s Iraq: The People's Report, prepared by Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver, researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies. I read about this report on ZNet. [Please, see my previous e-mail below]

Yesterday I CCed you all my e-mail to Iraq Body Count’s John Sloboda

The United for Peace and Justice’s report reads:

COST TO IRAQ:

IRAQ CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: ESTIMATES RANGE FROM 71,017-600,000+

As we all know, the IBC numbers are a count coming from Western media and not an estimate.

We all also know that a new ORB poll suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

Juan Cole commented, “The combination of the two, however, makes the Lancet study's conclusions seem unassailable and if anything conservative.”

Since the UFPJ report is supposed to circulate among peace activists and anti-war campaigners, my two questions are:

1. Will United for Peace and Justice make the due correction to its report?
2. Will ZNet publish a new article by UFPJ, stressing the new ORB poll and linking to a new, updated, more correct report?
3. Will you all stop at this point using the figures coming from Iraq Body Count every single time you need to communicate the real extent of the Iraqi genocidal carnage?

Thank you for your time

Best wishes,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

Gabriele Zamparini writes to John Sloboda: shut down your website

Dear Prof. John Sloboda,
Co-founder, analyst and press spokesperson IRAQ BODY COUNT

As you surely know, a new ORB poll suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

Juan Cole commented, “The combination of the two, however, makes the Lancet study's conclusions seem unassailable and if anything conservative.”

The Iraq Body Count’s criticism of the two Lancet studies, as published by your website and by many mainstream and alternative media, was wrong.

The many attempts by IBC and you personally to discredit the Lancet’s and its authors have helped in generating a propaganda campaign used by the warmongers to keep carry on the carnage.

I’m writing today not to look at the past, but to ask you to do one thing now and to do it without delay. One thing you should have done, in my view, long time ago.

Please, shut down your website and withdraw all IBC’s counters.

You may continue your valuable research in private and far from the attention of the media and those warmongers responsible for this genocidal carnage.

I am sure your sense of humanity and compassion will agree with this request.

Thank you

Sincerely,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

Iraq genocide: a new ORB poll

The Los Angeles Times published today:

According to the ORB poll, a survey of 1,461 adults suggested that the total number slain during more than four years of war was more than 1.2 million.

ORB said it drew its conclusion from responses to the question about those living under one roof: "How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003?"

Based on Iraq's estimated number of households -- 4,050,597 -- it said the 1.2 million figure was reasonable.

This is the complete ORB press release:

PRESS RELEASE

More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered since 2003 invasion

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent 'surge' is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003. Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).

These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,461 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

Q How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%

One death 16%

Two deaths 5%

Threedeaths 1%

Four+ deaths 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next. The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the brunt of refugees.

And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as "very/fairly good", more than one in two (54%) consider them to be "expensive".

Note:

The opinion poll was conducted by O.R.B. and the survey details are as follows:

• Results are based face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq.

• The standard margin of error on the sample size is +2.4%

• The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.

• Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.

• Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx

• O.R.B. are full members of the British Polling Council and abide by its rules

Contacts:

Johnny Heald Munqeth Daghir

Managing Director, ORB Managing Director, Baghdad

+44 207 611 5270 +962 799672229

07973 600308

Commenting on this new study, Juan Cole writes: "The combination of the two, however, makes the Lancet study's conclusions seem unassailable and if anything conservative."

I could bet those $ 1,000,000 I don't have that many people are already at work to discredit this new study as they have been doing since the first Lancet was published in 2004.

Iraq Body Count has had a paramount role in that shameful propaganda campaign aimed at making people ignore the scale of that carnage we all are responsible for.

To question this propaganda campaign and to object to IBC use at least on the left and within the anti-war movement, I am now known as a "really quite contemptable" person.

Amen

Gabriele Zamparini writes to Michael Albert

Dear Michael,

I read with interest and surprise a correspondence you had with Stephen on one Gabriele Zamparini. Stephen himself posted that correspondence on Media Lens message board [Reposted at the end of my reply]

Very briefly:

1) I have never claimed ZNet published “the article titled "Is the U.S. Responsible for a Million Iraqi Deaths?" by Patrick McElwee and Robert Naiman in response to pressure from Gabriele Zamparini” as your correspondent writes in his question to you;

2) In my latest piece, that paragraph brought to your attention by your correspondent was meant to chronicle the facts as they developed since you and I started our correspondence. As you may remember, during our correspondence started because a ZNet article published the IBC figures without even mentioning the only scientific studies on the subject and their findings, we had the following exchange:

ZAMPARINI: By the way, I have been trying to find in ZNet website the following article published on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 by CommonDreams.org but I couldn't find it.

Is the U.S. Responsible for the Death of Nearly a Million Iraqis?
by Robert Naiman

This is a very important article and I am sure ZNet must have republished it. Maybe I missed it?

If ZNet hasn’t published it yet, maybe this could be a good timing for publishing it?

ALBERT: We don’t see everything on common dreams, and even when we do, we don’t rerun it all…very rarely in fact…If naiman sends to us, it will go up, of course. I think you are right about the good timing, though, so perhaps you could suggest to him that he send it our way?

[Then I wrote to Naiman as you suggested. You may read that correspondence here]

3) I won’t comment on the many comments you made about me in your exchange with Stephen. You know perfectly well that this unfortunate situation is the result of your refusal to issue a fair and due correction about that article. I have explained many times why that would have been extremely important. IBC and its figures are the main instrument used by the warmongers to hide the real human cost of this carnage. IBC did all it could to help the warmongers’ propaganda. Yet, IBC has been used not only by the mainstream media but by too many on the left and the alternative media (included ZNet) when it was clear from the beginning what that operation was all about.

4) From the excellent article by Patrick McElwee and Robert Naiman (for which I congratulated both Naiman and you the same day it was published) one understands perfectly well the reason why we all should stop using IBC to communicate the real extent of the Iraqi carnage. That was what I have been trying to communicate to you and ZNet for all this time. I’m sorry I was not able to convince you.

5) ZNet published a few days ago an article by UFPJ. That article is about a UFPJ’s report that reads:

"Iraqi Civilian Casualties: estimates range from 71,017 - 600,000+"

The first mistake is that the IBC figures are not an estimate but a count from Western media.

Now, this UFPJ report is supposed to circulate among peace activists and anti-war campaigners.

I simply ask why UFPJ needed to state: "Iraqi Civilian Casualties: estimates range from 71,017 - 600,000+"

Why couldn't UFPJ simply refer to the best estimates we have?

As Robert Naiman wrote in his article:

"Unfortunately, the debate over whether the U.S. military should end its occupation of Iraq remains largely uninformed by accurate estimates of Iraqi deaths, at least here in the United States. Worse, there seems to be a lack of interest in how many Iraqis have been killed even as many who oppose withdrawal warn of the deaths that would ensue if the troops left. As a result, the American public is completely uninformed as to how many Iraqis have been killed. An AP poll in February asked Americans how many Iraqis had died as a result of the war. The median response was just under 10,000.

The best estimate indicates that more than a million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation. It is reasonable to suppose that if politicians and news media in the United States were forced to confront this reality, pressure for the end of the war would increase dramatically, and cavalier discussions of new military actions in Iran and Pakistan would be less likely."

6) After one million Iraqi deaths, we are still here talking about IBC. After one million Iraqi deaths, IBC is still taken seriously by the alternative media and the antiwar movement. After one million Iraqi deaths, IBC is still used in the alternative media, like that article on ZNet I pointed out and that started all this debate. I’m sorry if I have hurt your feelings and probably I did use too many strong a words. But I am NOT sorry I started this debate on the use of IBC and the real extent of the Iraqi carnage we are responsible for. I am surprised that you have found the time to reply on this issue to people trying to delegitimise my central point about IBC but not one word you have ever had on that central point.

7) In spite of all this, and in spite of the low consideration you have for me as you stated in your email to your correspondent, be assured I still have great respect for you, your history, your work and for ZNet, as the many links to ZNet and to you personally on my website and blog show. My questions were about two single cases, both extremely important because both the result of dangerous propaganda that has consequences for millions.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Gabriele Zamparini
London

***

THE FOLLOWING CORRESPONDENCE WAS PUBLISHED ON MEDIA LENS MESSAGE BOARD BY THE USER STEPHEN, MICHAEL ALBERT'S CORRESPONDENT:

Correspondence with Albert

Posted by Stephen on September 14, 2007, 12:44 am, in reply to "Re: P.S. Please, feel free to publish my piece on UKWatch and to send it to ZNet if you wish [nm]"
User logged in as: longusername

Email to Michael Albert.

Dear Michael,

Did you publish the article titled "Is the U.S. Responsible for a Million Iraqi Deaths?" by Patrick McElwee and Robert Naiman in response to pressure from Gabriele Zamparini?

I should perhaps have explained, the reason I ask is that Zamparini claims on his blog, "After more than a month of correspondence and pressing initiated on 8 August 2007 ZNet finally published an excellent article written by Just Foreign Policy's Patrick McElwee and Robert Naiman".

Some posters on medialens find the implication in this sentence difficult to believe.

I hope you don't mind my asking.

Regards,
Stephen

Reply from Michael Albert

Answer: no.

He is really quite contemptable, and of course had zero impact in any positive sense on us. After a bit of taking him seriously and respectfully attempting to clarify obvious points for him, when he proved obtuse to it, We simply ignored incoming mail from him thereafter, as we do now. That piece went up automatically - being from one of our writers, Naiman...

It is as if he sent us messages after message saying why did you put up a piece that called for reforms in the economy when you know parecon is better, truer, or whatever - for a week or two. And then, in the natural order a piece about parecon went up, and he took credit for it saying we did it because he pressured us.

Evidence which should only be necessary, if at all, for someone literally totally ignorant of Z: such pieces are entirely in line with our overall policies and have been going up on ZNet, as they arrive, for ages, as Zamparini must know.

If there is any doubt, to make the point by analogy, it is as if Zamparini saw a piece on ZNet calling for some kind of reform in the economy - let's say a higher minimum wage - and sent off to us and others a scathing assault on us, questioning our motives, etc., saying we are mere reformists, obscuring reality, supporting capitalism, and why don't we remove the essay or append a comment saying the author is a sellout reformist, and publish the truth - parecon is better than capitalism.(Note, the author wouldn't even be a reformist, in the analogy, just happened to be writing on behalf of a particular reform).

I suppose if Zamparini had no familiarity with our content at all, and didn't bother looking at the site before making claims about it, and had a horrible approach to assessing the motives of people and how to deal with things disagreed with, one could excuse the behavior. We did excuse it, giving him a gigantic benefit of doubt. And so we replied with relevant information, privately, not attacking him, all of which he ignored - blasting away no longer without comprehension, but presumably simply for the pleasure of blasting, or in hopes that his doing so would attract attention. That is sad, among other things.

Then in the normal course we put up a piece about parecon (in the analogy) and he says, (you are telling me he said this, I haven't seen it), that we have done this having been educated/pressured by him and having responded at last in accord with his lessons/demands. It is beyond sad, though all too typical in some respects.

He asked us to do what we naturally do, making believe we don't, then apparently claimed credit when we did it again, predictably, as is normal for us.

(PS. If anyone is confused, and you care enough to communicate with them, you can forward this message as having been sent to you in answer to your question...)

ACTION ALERT: A propaganda train called Iraq Body Count (& friends)

ACTION ALERT: A propaganda train called Iraq Body Count (& friends)
By Gabriele Zamparini

The Weekly Standard, the voice of the Neo-Con in Washington and whose Editor, William Kristol, is also Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, has published this brilliant endorsement of Iraq Body Count

HOLLYWOOD HATES THE TROOPS

"We've killed over 400,000 of their citizens." That's what actor Tim Robbins thinks U.S. troops have been doing in Iraq. He made the claim last week in an appearance on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

He's wrong, of course. American soldiers have not been slaughtering 300 Iraqis a day for the last four years. Even for one of Hollywood's most feculent personalities, this is an appalling slander of U.S. troops.

The Iraq Body Count is an antiwar website that tallies all civilian deaths in Iraq as reported in the news media. Theirs is a comprehensive count that seeks to hold the United States and Britain accountable for a wide range of civilian deaths. As explained at iraqbodycount.org: "The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion."

The antiwar group's "maximum count"? At the moment, 77,555. That's one-fifth the number concocted by Robbins's overactive imagination.

On December 2005, replying to a question in Philadelphia, US President George W. Bush said:

“How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.”

It was December 2005. One year earlier the first Lancet’s had been published and immediately buried together with its findings, those 100,000 Iraqi killed in the first year and half alone of the US-led war of aggression, the supreme international crime for which the major Nazi war criminals were hanged in Nuremberg.

Iraq Body Count (from where those “30,000, more or less” came from) got then the official blessing of the establishment responsible for that carnage and the definitive endorsement of the state-corporate media worldwide.

People should ask themselves why IBC is endorsed by all the warmongers, the Bushes, the Blairs, the state-corporate media that still keep ignoring the Iraqi carnage, the neo-con... The same people then should ask themselves why the Lancets have been ignored since the beginning with preposterous excuses and shameful sophistry.

Are you aware of all the times IBC discredited the two scientific studies conducted by the world leaders in the field of epidemiology and published as peer-reviewed scientific papers in the world's leading medical journal, the Lancet? It's become the first occupation of this bunch of ambitious and unscrupulous amateurs.

If you are new to this debate, please take a look at the following links just to start:

Speculation Is No Substitute: A Defence Of Iraq Body Count
Executive Summary by Hamit Dardagan and John Sloboda and Josh Dougherty
May 02, 2006
Iraq Body Count

From this article published on ZNet:

"In an ill-informed and antagonistic campaign spearheaded by the web-based pressure group Media Lens, it has been vehemently claimed that we are grossly undercounting deaths; that we severely underrepresent the deaths caused by the US military; and that we do nothing to advertise these gross errors or to correct them. This article shows the first two claims to be false, and therefore the third claim becomes irrelevant.

Our critics are united by a deep distrust of Western media, and an ardent advocacy of the views of epidemiologist Les Roberts, a co-author of the respected Iraqi mortality study by Johns Hopkins University published in the British medical journal The Lancet in 2004.

The media stand accused by our critics of failing to give the Lancet study the priority it deserves, and for citing IBC figures in preference to it. Our critics demand that we give Lancet preference over our own ongoing work and insist that we have a moral obligation to instruct the media to do the same.

The Lancet study makes an important contribution to knowledge. However, our critics rely on highly misleading and speculative conclusions drawn from that study and its lead author, which this article analyses and rebuts."

***

More from the real voice of IBC:

"The figure 655,000, which you seem to have accepted without explaining why, is taken from the Lancet medical journal in October 2006. This, in our view, is quite problematic and there is considerable cause for scepticism regarding these estimates."

***

The great humanitarian projest:

"Recent public debate has rather focused on the number of deaths we don’t record, and how much of an undercount that might be. Our own view is that the current death toll could be around twice the numbers recorded by IBC and the various official sources in Iraq. We do not think it could possibly be 10 times higher." - Iraq Body Count [John Sloboda, Josh Dougherty, Hamit Dardagan]

***

A notorious BBC interview:

BBC’s question: Your critics claim that your work is a vast undercount, how do you answer that?

IBC’s John Sloboda’s answer: The claim (that our work is a vast undercount) is made basically on the back of some quite shaky extrapolations from a single study that was carried out with a particular methodology in 2004. That is the celebrated Lancet study. (…) Some critics of the Lancet study have said it's like a drunk throwing a dart at a dartboard. It's going to go somewhere, but who knows if that number is the bulls eye. Unfortunately many many people have decided to accept that that 98,000 figure is the truth - or the best approximation to the truth that we have.

There are many, many, many more examples of IBC’s struggle for the just cause.

IBC is actively helping the Bush junta to carry on this genocidal carnage because it actively helps the huge propaganda campaign aimed at making people ignore the scale of that carnage.

After more than a month of correspondence and pressing initiated on 8 August 2007 ZNet finally published an excellent article written by Just Foreign Policy’s Patrick McElwee and Robert Naiman.

During this month I had to accept to be vilified, insulted and derided by Michael Albert and the ZNet’s tribe

Preposterous excuses after preposterous excuses, sophistry after sophistry, Zamparini has been a pain in the neck for too long and for too many and needed to be discredited and then ignored.

Finally the excellent article on ZNet by Just Foreign Policy’s Patrick McElwee and Robert Naiman, who wrote:

Unfortunately, the debate over whether the U.S. military should end its occupation of Iraq remains largely uninformed by accurate estimates of Iraqi deaths, at least here in the United States. Worse, there seems to be a lack of interest in how many Iraqis have been killed even as many who oppose withdrawal warn of the deaths that would ensue if the troops left. As a result, the American public is completely uninformed as to how many Iraqis have been killed. An AP poll in February asked Americans how many Iraqis had died as a result of the war. The median response was just under 10,000.

The best estimate indicates that more than a million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation. It is reasonable to suppose that if politicians and news media in the United States were forced to confront this reality, pressure for the end of the war would increase dramatically, and cavalier discussions of new military actions in Iran and Pakistan would be less likely.

I congratulated the authors and Michael Albert on the same day the article was published.

The day after, another appalling surprise, always on ZNet, always coming from those who should be the first to inform the public on the huge crimes against humanity of our ruthless leaders. An article by United for Peace and Justice reads:

Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator of UFPJ, says, "We feel it is essential to provide a true picture of what the shattered lives of the 25 million Iraqis look like today. For four years now we have been hearing the same false claims that the U.S. is making important gains, but they have never been true. Prepared by Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver, researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies, Iraq: The People's Report, takes an honest look at what this war has cost the people in Iraq and our communities here in the U.S."

Through the link provided I went to the actual report. The UFPJ report reads [PDF]:

COST TO IRAQ:

IRAQ CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: ESTIMATES RANGE FROM 71,017-600,000+

Once again I wrote to Phyllis Bennis, Leslie Cagan and many other intellectuals and activists.

I have spent the past three years writing to mainstream journalists and media and anti-war activists around the world on the need to focus on the real extent of the carnage inflicted upon the Iraqi people and to highlight the only scientific studies on the mortality in invaded and occupied Iraq.

On 10 April 2006 I published a correspondence with Phyllis Bennis on this topic.

Among other preposterous excuses, she wrote me:

“I am less concerned with which figures get cited as the wars consequences than in finding a good strategy for ending it altogether.
many thanks for your ideas.
phyllis bennis”

and

“There are plenty of estimates out there. No one is hiding anything.”

One million plus Iraqi deaths later, there are still "plenty of estimates out there" and her job and the job of UFPJ seems to be to confuse the public and conceal the truth.

Two scientific studies conducted by the world leaders in the field of epidemiology and published as peer-reviewed scientific papers in the world's leading medical journal. Articles, e-mails, debates, alerts… and large and important sectors of this so-called anti-war movement are still hiding the real extent of the Iraq genocide. Is there a word for this shame?

As Howard Zinn teaches us, You can't be neutral on a moving train.

What you can do?

Every time you read, watch or hear on your local or national mainstream or alternative media figures that downplay the genocidal carnage in Iraq, write to the editors to inform them and kindly ask them to issue a correction;

Every time you read, watch or hear from your local