August 28, 2010

I am deeply confused by the claim in the article The Deaths that Chilcot Forgot and published by the Morning Star, that according to Iraq Body Count only 106,000 violent deaths have occurred within Iraq since 2003, a figure that is contrary to everybody who actually works inside of Iraq, when even according to the Iraqi Government themselves, there are now, at minimum, over three million orphans within Iraq.

Couple that with the fact that over one million widows have been created since 2003 and in 2006/2007 alone, at the height of the sectarian tensions, there were an estimated 3.000 deaths "reported" per month and these figures do not even include the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi deaths caused by the UN imposed sanctions .

Majority of the hospitals have also been unable to keep an accurate record of Iraqi deaths, due to shortages and with civilians also being fearful of collecting the deceased from mortuaries because of the various death squads, the reality is that Iraqi deaths caused by the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is likely to exceed even the one million number, that is universally recognised by all consistent organisations and international bodies.

As Iraq Body Count only include the deaths which have been "documented" by the Western media , the denialism that now exists surrounds the fact that many undocumented deaths do include those who have died due to a lack of medicines, trauma related suicides, shrapnel and combat induced injuries, along with birth defects and still births, caused by displacement and the use of chemical and biological weapons.

*Hussein Al-alak is chairman of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign UK.