655k

By now you've probaby heard about the report from the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health that since the start of the invasion in March 2003, 655,000 Iraqis have died. In case you didn't get the detail, researchers interviewed 1,849 households at 47 random locations in Iraq this summer. Heads of households were asked how many members had lost their lives in the year before the invasion and how many in the three subsequent years. Crucially, researchers asked for death certificates in 87% of the households and, of those, 92% produced them. The results were then applied to the population of Iraq as a whole. Of the total estimated 655k, just over 601,000 were violent deaths and included insurgents/combatants, police and civilians. Just under 200,000 of these were directly attributed to coalition forces and the rest were "other" or "unknown".

The figure to concentrate on I think is the 601,000. Naturally Bush, Inc. and Blair.con have rejected the findings, but remember Rumsfeld saying "we don't do body counts"? They either didn't do body counts because they simply didn't care (despite being there "to liberate the people") or didn't want the bad news to come out. The Lancet study in 2004 that estimated 100,000 dead springs to mind, and the (neo)cons were very quick to scramble their spin and discredit machines into work on that one. The media took it as read that the study was flawed, probably after a few rednecks said so on Fox (that bastion of truth and balance), so the Lancet study was never given the credence it should have been.

But this is harder to ignore. The British government prefers to rely on figures from the Ministry of Health here, which recorded 7,254 deaths in all of 2005. I nearly choked on my cornflakes when I read that. BushCo and Blair.con prefer the figure of around 50,000. Has anyone called a nurse for those two? Okay, to be fair, even I think that 601,000 violent deaths figure is probably a bit high, but I reckon that as a minimum, 400,000 (including during the invasion) is totally realistic. Even that's something to be properly ashamed of. It just amazes me how these two both got voted back in 2 years ago. Admittedly in both the US and UK the Opposition stuck a real fucking donkey up against Bush and Blair respectively, but come on, isn't this important? It shows what shit state democracy is in on both sides of the Atlantic if your choice is to vote for a donkey or a prick. And we're exporting THAT???

Bit of excitement tonight........... It's raining!

So that thing the other night was the thing down at FOB Falcon (the US base) but in separate news, there were some rockets lobbed in here too. Never a dull moment, apart from the fact that there's nothing to do.....