[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Counting the Iraqi Dead

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
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>ACTION ALERT:
>Counting the Iraqi Dead
>
>March 21, 2005
>
>On the weekend of the two-year anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of
>Iraq, media outlets took stock of the war's death toll. But the national
>newscasts undercounted the most dramatic loss of life: the deaths of Iraqi
>civilians.
>
>On the March 18 CBS Evening News, reporter Byron Pitts gave these figures:
>"Today, U.S. deaths number more than 1,500. There are no exact figures for
>Iraqi fatalities, but estimates are for every American killed, 11 Iraqis
>died."  In other words, more than 16,500 Iraqi deaths.
>
>NBC's Brian Williams (3/18/05) offered a slightly higher estimate: "So
>far, 1,513 American military personnel have been killed, 11,344 injured,
>and many of those are amputees. Estimates of the Iraqi death toll are hard
>to come by officially, but the civilian toll is thought to range from
>17,000 to nearly 20,000 dead and beyond."  ABC's World News Tonight did
>not appear to offer a similar count, but earlier this month (3/3/05)
>anchor Peter Jennings reported: "There are no official numbers of Iraqi
>civilian casualties, but Iraqi Body Count, an independent web-site that
>compiles media reports of the deaths there, says as many as 18,000 Iraqis
>may have been killed."
>
>With his "and beyond" comment, NBC's Williams seemed to be referring to an
>estimate of Iraqi civilian casualties that none of the networks saw fit to
>mention: According to a study published in the respected British medical
>journal The Lancet (10/29/04), about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as
>a result of the war.  The majority of deaths were due to violence,
>primarily as a result of U.S.-led military action.  One of the researchers
>on the project said that the estimate is likely a conservative one (New
>York Times, 10/29/04).  It's certainly a more scientific estimate than the
>Iraq Body Count figure cited by ABC, which is, as that project's website
>notes, a "compilation of civilian deaths that have been reported by
>recognized sources....  It is likely that many if not most civilian
>casualties will go unreported by the media."
>
>Recent polling (ABC/Washington Post poll, 3/16/05) indicates that the vast
>majority of the American public believes that U.S. casualties in Iraq are
>unacceptable.  One can only wonder what Americans think about the level of
>Iraqi civilian casualties; unfortunately, the media's count dramatically
>minimizes that death toll.
>
>
>ACTION: Contact the network newscasts and ask them to include the Lancet
>study in their reporting about Iraq's civilian casualties.
>
>
>CONTACT:
>ABC World News Tonight
>Phone: 212-456-4040
>mailto:PeterJennings at abcnews.com
>
>CBS Evening News
>Phone: 212-975-3691
>mailto:evening at cbsnews.com
>
>NBC Nightly News
>Phone: 212-664-4971
>mailto:nightly at nbc.com
>
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>To listen to a CounterSpin interview with civilian casualties researcher
>Richard Garfield, go to:
>http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2021
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

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