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| how many people did saddam kill again? (how many on your conscience?) [message #75742] |
Thu, 09 November 2006 13:56  |
j-cron
Messages: 23
Registered: October 2006
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Junior Member |
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I know the AP is just full of left wing media bias but...
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/09/D8L9PBBG0.html
Iraqi Official: 150,000 Civilians Dead
A stunning new death count emerged Thursday, as Iraq's health minister
estimated at least 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war _ about
three times previously accepted estimates.
Moderate Sunni Muslims, meanwhile, threatened to walk away from politics and
pick up guns, while the Shiite-dominated government renewed pressure on the
United States to unleash the Iraqi army and claimed it could crush violence
in six months.
After Democrats swept to majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned, Iraqis appeared unsettled and
seemed to sense the potential for an even bloodier conflict because future
American policy is uncertain. As a result, positions hardened on both sides
of the country's deepening sectarian divide.
Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000-50,000 have been killed
in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi
institutions and media reports.
No official count has ever been available, and Health Minister Ali al-
Shemari did not detail how he arrived at the new estimate of 150,000, which
he provided to reporters during a visit to the Austrian capital.
But later Thursday, Hassan Salem, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said the 150,000 figure included civilians,
police and the bodies of people who were abducted, later found dead and
collected at morgues run by the Health Ministry. SCIRI is Iraq's largest
Shiite political organization and holds the largest number of seats in
parliament.
In October, the British medical journal The Lancet published a controversial
study contending nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war _ a far
higher death toll than other estimates. The study, which was dismissed by
President Bush and other U.S. officials as not credible, was based on
interviews of households and not a body count.
Al-Shemari disputed that figure Thursday.
"Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some
people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I
think 150 is OK," he said.
Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict
have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely
conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death
figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that
function with varying efficiency.
As al-Shemari issued the startling new estimate, the head of the Baghdad
central morgue said Thursday he was receiving as many as 60 violent death
victims each day at his facility alone. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaidi said
those deaths did not include victims of violence whose bodies were taken to
the city's many hospital morgues or those who were removed from attack
scenes by relatives and quickly buried according to Muslim custom.
Al-Obaidi said the morgue had received 1,600 violent death victims in
October, one of the bloodiest months of the conflict. U.S. forces suffered
105 deaths last month, the fourth highest monthly toll.
At least 45 Iraqis were killed or found dead in continuing sectarian
violence Thursday, with 16 of the victims killed in bombings at Baghdad
markets. For the fifth straight day, insurgent and militia mortar teams
traded fire in the capital's northern neighborhoods.
Al-Shemari, while not explaining the death toll estimate, was more precise
about the government's increasingly public and insistent demands for a
speedier U.S. transfer of authority to Iraqi forces and the withdrawal of
American troops to their bases and from Iraq's cities and towns.
"The army of America didn't do its job. ... They tie the hands of my
government," said al-Shemari, a Shiite.
"They should hand us the power. We are a sovereign country," he said, adding
that the first step would be for American forces to leave population
centers.
Al-Shemari is a controversial figure and a member of the movement of radical
anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Some U.S. officials have complained
that the ministry has diverted supplies to al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
In August, U.S. troops arrested seven of al-Shemari's personal guards in a
raid on his office. The U.S. never explained the raid, but Iraqi officials
said Americans suspected the guards were part of a militia.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who also has close ties to al-Sadr, told
Bush in a video conference last month that he would make renewal of the U.N.
mandate under which the U.S. keeps forces in Iraq conditional on a rapid
handover of power.
Al-Maliki also said at the time that U.S. forces should clear out of Iraq's
cities, according to top aide Hassan al-Suneid. He said the White House
agreed, although that was never confirmed in Washington.
Last week, al-Maliki rejected a demand by a visiting top administration
official that he move to disband Shiite militias by year's end. A senior
al-Maliki adviser, who refused to be identified by name because of the
sensitive nature of the talks, said the prime minister told U.S. National
Intelligence Director John Negroponte it would be suicidal for the Iraqi
leader to move against the heavily armed militias.
The militias are a key player in the sectarian conflict in Iraq, having
taken to the streets with extreme vengeance against Sunni insurgents and
civilians after the February bombing of a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad.
The militias and their death squads are the armed wings of rival Shiite
political parties. One of the militias, known as the Mahdi Army, is loyal to
al-Sadr; the second, larger group is known as the Badr Brigade and answers
to the SCIRI.
Al-Maliki's hold on power depends on the support of both political
organizations and their fighters, hence his reluctance to move against the
armed groups.
He also has balked at U.S. demands for passage of a series of laws that
would favor minority Sunnis, a group that makes up the bulk of the
insurgency that has been fighting U.S. forces and has killed tens of
thousands of Shiites.
Sunni members of parliament over the past two days have threatened to walk
out of the legislature and take up arms. They charge the Shiite- dominated
government with refusing to meet their demands for a fair division of power
and natural resources.
The dean of the Sunni politicians in parliament said Thursday there were
attempts by Iran to run Sunnis out of the country. Adnan al- Dulaimi then
called Arab countries to support Iraq's Sunni minority.
"There is a Safawi (Iranian) plan to root the Sunnis out of this country,
and we are confronting it," al-Dulaimi said. "We call on our Arab brethren
to support us and confront this Safawi plan."
His political group has five ministers in al-Maliki's Cabinet and al-
Dulaimi again threatened to pull them out of the government.
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| Re: how many people did saddam kill again? (how many on your conscience?) [message #75747 is a reply to message #75742] |
Thu, 09 November 2006 15:58  |
steve the artguy
Messages: 308
Registered: June 2005
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Senior Member |
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Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 290,000 people were killed under
the rule of Saddam Hussein.
The latest Lancet study, using methods that are standard for medical statistics,
estimates about 600,000 extra deaths are the result of the US invasion of
Iraq.
"Burnham said the confidence interval of the data put the range of the number
of deaths between 400,000 and 900,000. He suggested the media should not
get too focused on the 655,000 number."
Meanwhile,don't forget:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million
children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima.
And, you know, is the price worth it?"
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice,
but the price--we think the price is worth it."
-60 Minutes (5/12/96)
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| Re: how many people did saddam kill again? (how many on your conscience?) [message #75754 is a reply to message #75747] |
Thu, 09 November 2006 18:36 |
Dc[7]
Messages: 1
Registered: November 2006
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Junior Member |
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And let's all remember that deaths in the fight for freedom from
tryanny are different than deaths in a big pit with the rest of your
family, or there's always the plastic shredder...
"steve the artguy" <artguy@somethingorother.net> wrote:
>
>Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 290,000 people were killed
under
>the rule of Saddam Hussein.
>
>The latest Lancet study, using methods that are standard for medical statistics,
>estimates about 600,000 extra deaths are the result of the US invasion of
>Iraq.
>
>"Burnham said the confidence interval of the data put the range of the number
>of deaths between 400,000 and 900,000. He suggested the media should not
>get too focused on the 655,000 number."
>
>Meanwhile,don't forget:
>
>Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half
million
>children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima.
>And, you know, is the price worth it?"
>
>Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice,
>but the price--we think the price is worth it."
>
> -60 Minutes (5/12/96)
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