[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] Marla Ruzicka uncovered US's secret tally of Iraqi casualties (The Indepedent)

Thu Apr 21 23:32:27 PDT 2005

>
>
>Aid Worker Uncovered America's Secret Tally of
>Iraqi Civilian Deaths 
>by Andrew Buncombe in Washington
>
>The Independent (UK), April 20, 2005
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=631173
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0420-07.htm
>
>
>A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber,
>humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military
>commanders to admit they did keep records of
>Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.
>
>Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central
>Command, famously said the US army "don't do body
>counts", despite a requirement to do so by the
>Geneva Conventions.
>
>But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before
>her death on Saturday and published yesterday,
>the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General
>told her it was "standard operating procedure"
>for US troops to file a report when they shoot a
>non-combatant.
>
>She obtained figures for the number of civilians
>killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5
>April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in
>firefights involving US forces and insurgents.
>This was four times the number of Iraqi police
>killed.
>
>"These statistics demonstrate that the US
>military can and does track civilian casualties,"
>she wrote. "Troops on the ground keep these
>records because they recognise they have a
>responsibility to review each action taken and
>that it is in their interest to minimise
>mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and
>minds of Iraqis is a key component of their
>strategy."
>
>Sam Zia-Zarifi, deputy director of the Asia
>division of Human Rights Watch, the group for
>which Ms Ruzicka wrote the report, said her
>discovery "was very important because it allows
>the victims to start demanding compensation". He
>added: "At a policy level they have never
>admitted they keep these figures."
>
>Exactly how many Iraqi civilians have been killed
>in the last two years is unclear. Iraq Body
>Count, a group that monitors casualty reports,
>says at least 17,384 have died. But the group
>bases its totals only on deaths reported by the
>media, and says it can therefore only "be a
>sample" of the total actually killed. Its website
>says: "It is likely that many if not most
>civilian casualties will go unreported by the
>media. That is the sad nature of war."
>
>A peer-reviewed report published last year in The
>Lancet and based on an extrapolation of data
>suggested that 100,000 civilians may have been
>killed during the invasion and its aftermath. One
>of the report's author, Dr Richard Garfield,
>professor of nursing at Columbia University,
>said: "Of course they keep records and of course
>they pretend they don't. Why is it important to
>keep the numbers of those killed? Well, why was
>it important to record the names of those people
>killed in the World Trade Centre? It would have
>been inconceivable not to. These people have
>lives of value.
>
>"We are still fighting [to record] the Armenian
>genocide. Until people have names and are counted
>they don't exist in a policy sense."
>
>Ms Ruzicka, from California, was killed in
>Baghdad after her car was caught in the blast of
>a suicide bomber who attacked a convoy of
>security contractors on the road to the city's
>airport. She was in Iraq heading, Civic, the
>organisation she set up to record and document
>civilians killed or injured by the US military,
>and to seek compensation. She carried out a
>similar project in Afghanistan.
>
>In her report, she wrote from Iraq: "In my
>dealings with the US military officials here,
>they have shown regret and remorse for the deaths
>and injuries of civilians. Systematically
>recording and publicly releasing civilian
>casualty numbers would assist in helping the
>victims who survive to piece their lives back
>together."
>
>Colleagues of Ms Ruzicka at Civic (Campaign for
>Innocent Victims In Conflict) have vowed to
>continue her work. April Pedersen, a friend,
>said: "We are all committed to ensuring the work
>that Marla did is going to continue." Ms Ruzicka,
>whose funeral service is to be in California on
>Saturday, was also remembered on Capitol Hill
>where Senator Patrick Leahy, with whom Ms Ruzicka
>worked to achieve almost $20m in appropriations
>to help victims in Afghanistan and Iraq, paid
>tribute to her.
>
>He said: "I want to... pay tribute to a
>remarkable young woman from Lakeport, California.
>In my 31 years as a United States Senator I have
>met lots of interesting and accomplished people
>from all over the world. We all have. Nobel prize
>winners, heads of state, people who have achieved
>remarkable and even heroic things in their lives.
>I have never met anyone like Marla Ruzicka."
>Meanwhile the Pentagon maintained its position
>that it did not keep numbers of civilians killed
>in Iraq.
>
>'The public must know how many have died'
>
>This is an edited extract of an article written
>by Marla Ruzicka a week before her death:
>
>In my two years in Iraq, the one question I am
>asked the most is: "How many Iraqi civilians have
>been killed by American forces?" The American
>public has a right to know how many Iraqis have
>lost their lives since the start of the war and
>as hostilities continue.
>
>In a news conference at Bagram air base in
>Afghanistan in March 2002, General Tommy Franks
>said: "We don't do body counts." His words
>outraged the Arab world.
>
>During the Iraq war, as US troops pushed toward
>Baghdad, counting civilian casualties was not a
>priority for the military. Since 1 May 2003, when
>President Bush declared major combat operations
>over and the US military moved into "stability
>operations", most units began to keep track of
>civilians killed at checkpoints or during patrols
>by US soldiers.
>
>Here in Baghdad, a brigadier general explained to
>me that it is standard procedure for US troops to
>file a spot report when they shoot a
>non-combatant. It is in the military's interest
>to release these statistics.
>
>A number is important not only to quantify the
>cost of war, but as a reminder of those whose
>dreams will never be realised in a free and
>democratic Iraq.
>
>© 2005 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
>
>###
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand