This would be funny if it was not so tragic. Notice how the mainstream US press equates the quislings put in power by the US with "Iraq" The foreign press is much more objective in its descriptions.
AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead
Wed Dec 10, 2:17 PM ET
By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Health Ministry officials ordered a halt to a count of civilian casualties from the war and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
AP Photo
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The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied that he or the U.S.-led occupation authority had anything to do with the order, and said he didn't even know about the survey of deaths, which number in the thousands.
Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department, said the order came from the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, who told her it was on behalf of Abbas. She said the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, didn't like the idea of the count either.
"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be done."
Abbas, whose secretary said he was out of the country, sent an e-mail denying the charge.
"I have no knowledge of a civilian war casualty survey even being started by the Ministry of Health, much less stopping it," he wrote. "The CPA did not direct me to stop any such survey either."
"Plain and simple, this is false information," he added.
Despite Abbas' comments, the Health Ministry's civilian death toll count had been reported by news media as early as August, and the count was widely anticipated by human rights organizations. The ministry issued a preliminary figure of 1,764 deaths during the summer.
A spokesman for the CPA confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, saying the occupation authority contacted the minister by phone and asked him to respond. The CPA didn't provide a phone number, and the minister didn't respond to e-mails requesting further comment.
The CPA spokesman said the coalition had no comment.
Shabandar's office said he was attending a conference in Egypt.
The U.S. military doesn't count civilian casualties from its wars, saying only that it tries to minimize civilian deaths.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, called that policy irresponsible.
"That deliberate ignorance of the past risks condemning the U.S. military to repeating its mistakes into the future and needlessly risking further civilian deaths," he said by telephone from New York.
Roth said the government doesn't count because "politically, it's embarrassing to talk about civilian casualties in one's war effort."
The Associated Press conducted a major investigation of Iraq (news - web sites)'s wartime civilian casualties, documenting the deaths of 3,240 civilians between March 20 and April 20. That investigation, conducted in May and June, surveyed about half of Iraq's hospitals, and reported that the real number of civilian deaths was sure to be much higher.
The Health Ministry's count, which was to be based on the records of all Iraq's hospitals, promised to be more complete. |
