Four Years: One Million Iraqi Deaths |
By Gideon Polya
22 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
I started contributing articles to Countercurrents in 2004. In December 2004 in an article entitled “Non-reportage of Mass Murder” (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-polya241204.htm ) I gave estimates of post-invasion Iraqi under-5 infants deaths and excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen), QUOTE:
“The latest updated UNICEF report (December 2004) reveals massive under-5 infant mortality in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan totalling over 0.4 million for the year 2003. However Anglo-American-dominated global media will simply not report this horrendous mortality in these US-occupied countries…
In late October 2004 the prestigious UK medical journal The Lancet published an expert study with data indicating a post-invasion excess mortality of up to about 300,000 (i.e. 180,000 per year). However there was only limited subsequent mainstream media reportage of a lower estimate of post-invasion excess mortality of 100,000 (arrived at by deleting mortality data from the Fallujah area as being unrepresentative)…
My calculations published in Australasian Science in June 2004 indicated that since the beginning of US-UK attacks in 1991 the excess mortality in Iraq had been 1.5 million and the under-5 infant mortality 1.2 million. My conservative estimate that excess mortality and under-5 infant mortality were of the order of 100,000 per year since the final invasion in March 2003 is consonant with the latest UNICEF report (December 2004) and the data in The Lancet paper (late October 2004).”
It is now the Fourth Anniversary of the illegal US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq (March 20, 2003). Mainstream media are still IGNORING the carnage – but now the post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths total 1 MILLION.
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are obliged to inform others about gross abuses of humanity. Below is a detailed, quantitative, highly referenced letter that I have sent to mainstream media around the world on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. But will Mainstream media report the estimate from authoritative scientific data that the post-invasion excess deaths now total 1 million?
Dear Sir/Madam,
Four years after the illegal US-UK-Australian invasion of Iraq, how many Iraqis have died post-invasion?
Post-invasion Occupied Iraqi excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) now total ONE MILLION as of March 2007, after 4 years of war and as estimated from data from the top US medical epidemiology group in the World’s top Public Health School (the Nobel Laureate-containing Bloomberg School of Public Health) at the top US Johns Hopkins University, published peer-reviewed in the top UK medical journal The Lancet and endorsed by 27 top Australian medical experts. [1-3]
Consonant with post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories totalling 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively, the post-invasion under-5 year old infant deaths total 0.5 million and 1.9 million, respectively; the number of refugees total 3.8 million and 3.8 million, respectively; and, according to WHO, the annual per capita medical expenditures permitted by the Occupiers are $64 and $23, respectively, as compared to $2,874 (Australia), $2,389 (UK) and $5,711 (US). [4-10]
The accrual cost (i.e. the long-term committed cost) of the Bush Iraq and Afghan Wars is now $2.5 TRILLION, this estimate coming from 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate and former Chief Economist of the World Bank US Professor Stiglitz (Columbia) and Professor Linda Bilmes (Harvard), who also estimate a cost of $6.5 million for each US soldier killed. Assuming the “all men are created equal” this leads to a Reparations Bill of $ 6.5 million x 3.4 million = $22 trillion. [11 -12]
These horrendous outcomes indicate gross violation by the US Alliance of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (notably Articles 38, 55 and 56), UN Genocide Convention (specifically Article 2) as well as of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Rights of the Child Convention. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are inescapably obliged to inform everyone about horrendous abuses of humanity. [13-16]
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia
Key references:
[1] http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/
images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
[3] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12904/42/
[5] http://www.unicef.org/index.php
[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1986147,00.html
[7] http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/country?iso=afg
[9] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11968/42/
[10] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12741/42/
[11] http://www.newstatesman.com/200703120024
[12] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/42/
[13] http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm
[14] http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm
[15] http://gpolya.newsvine.com/
[16] http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/
Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his websites: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ , http://gpolya.newsvine.com/ and
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ). As a radical alternative to dispassionate scientific analysis on behalf of humanity, he has painted some huge paintings demanding respect for Woman and Mother and Child: Sydney Madonna: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10865/26/ ,
Manhattan Madonna: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10766/26/ ,
Truelove: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11031/254/ and Qana: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/ .