Conflict 'kills 25,000 Iraqis'


Scene of Baghdad car bombing
More than half of civilian deaths were caused by explosive devices
Nearly 25,000 civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003, a report says.

Based on more than 10,000 media reports, the dossier is the first detailed account of such deaths.

"The ever-mounting Iraqi death toll is the forgotten cost of the decision to go to war in Iraq," said Professor John Sloboda, one of the report authors.

The Iraq Body Count and Oxford Research Group, made up of academics and peace activists, carried out the survey.

The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005 says 37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US-led forces.


It remains a matter of the gravest concern that neither the US nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed
John Sloboda
Report author

Many of these occurred during the invasion phase, which it counts as ending on 1 May 2003.

But killings by anti-occupation and criminal elements also increased steadily over the entire two-year period.

Insurgents are said to have caused 9% of the deaths, while post-invasion criminal violence was responsible for another 36%.

The number of civilians who have died has almost doubled in the second year from the first year, according to the report.

'Failure'

Almost a fifth of the 24,865 deaths were women or children and nearly half of all the civilian deaths were reported in the capital Baghdad.

"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said Professor Sloboda.

"It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the US nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed."

The IBC wants to see an independent commission set up in Iraq to give the best estimate of civilian deaths and full details of how each person died.

Human rights groups say the occupying powers in Iraq have failed in their duty to catalogue the deaths of civilians.

But the US and Britain say the chaos of war-torn Iraq has made it impossible to get accurate information.

More than 1,700 US soldiers and dozens of other coalition troops are known to have died.

The Iraqi government says 1,300 Iraqi police and military have been killed since security forces were set up in late 2003. But US think-tank the Brookings Institute puts the figure at almost twice this number.

Explosives

More than half of all civilian deaths were said to have been caused by explosive devices, which disproportionately affected children.

At least 42,500 civilians were reported to have been injured.

The UK-based Iraq Body Count - run by academics and peace activists - is one of the most widely-quoted sources of information on the civilian death toll in Iraq.

The Oxford Research Group describes itself as an independent organisation "which seeks to develop effective methods whereby people can bring about positive change on issues of national and international security by non-violent means".



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4692589.stm

Let me get this straight.

Terrorists use bombs and other exploding devices to blow up themselves and others, even innocent women and children, and it's blamed on the coalition forces?

Real responsible study there.....

Well, that shit wasn't happening 4 years ago was it?

How many suicide bombings were there in Iraq during the two years prior to the invasion? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say 0.

Remember what our president has said time and again--we're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. So in essence we took our fight into a country that had no relationship to it, and now the civilians in that country are dying daily. How are we not even a little bit responsible?

Furthermore, coalition forces have killed plenty of innocents too. Don't act as if every civilian that's been killed in Iraq was killed by terrorists.

Oh it definately must be true if the "The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005" says so. The group of, how did it put it, "academics and peace activists" couldn't possibly have some sort of agenda, now could they?

Come on. With all the suicide bombings over there almost everyday, you're telling me that it's only 9%?

Yep. Unless you've got data to show otherwise.

Well on Hannity earlier this weekend he blamed the open British society anf the fact that their economy sucks and they aren't brave enough to ennact a Brit version of the Patriot Act. I almost gagged in my car, what a prick.

That's where I stopped reading.

understood, I dont know why i listen to him, it makes me crazy

Stop. Seriously. He's such a predictable bag of shit it's pathetic. Same goes for the ones on the left. Why Americans have become so dependent on these types for their opinions is beyond me.

Don't come down on them too hard. Don't you think people usually know what you, me, punkdavid, jacktor, LittleWing, broken_iris, Zutballs, cltaylor12, PJDoll, and ChrisH2 are all going to say on 99% of issues? But they log on to get our take on politics anyhow.

We're not on national television pretending to be journalists though.

How many Iraqi citizens did Saddam Hussien kill during his reign? Was it more or less?

im not to sure Saddam was "spreading freedom" and waving flags and under the impression he was doing these people a tremendous service though.

But when i think about it more, its a good analogy...comparing Saddam to Bush.

if you really believe that, jump in a time machine, go live in iraq, and see how vastly different they are

probably the same number that bush executed in texas,

didnt you see PD's thread in GD....its already been sold

But its like, people are dying like crazy and we are the cause of it,or at least some of it, and people STILL try to find reasons to explain it or defend it, its disgusting, how many deaths until people start saying, "oh shit, this is bad and it stil isnt getting better"

Its all about agenda and its retarded. We can kil a bunch fo people for what we deem as good.....kill the criminals and some civilians to get the bad guys, and its a risk we are wiling to take. Then why not in hostage negotiations just motherfuck teh place to smitherines? Its essentialy like Iraw is one big hostage negotiation and we just bomb the fuck out of anyone so long as we might get a bad guy, its stupid.