Date: September 23, 2008 7:55:48 PM GMT+01:00
Subject: MidEast Dispatches: Nazzal/Jamail story voted #1
“Iraq: Not our country to Return to” for Inter Press Service, by Maki
al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail, voted #1 most censored story of 2008 by
Project Censored.
More information about the story:
#1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Sources:
After Downing Street, July 6, 2007
Title: “Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It
More?”
Author: Michael Schwartz
AlterNet, September 17, 2007
Title: “Iraq death toll rivals Rwanda genocide, Cambodian killing fields”
Author: Joshua Holland
AlterNet, January 7, 2008
Title: “Iraq conflict has killed a million, says survey”
Author: Luke Baker
Inter Press Service, March 3, 2008
Title: “Iraq: Not our country to Return to”
Authors: Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail
Student Researchers: Danielle Stanton, Tim LeDonne, and Kat Pat Crespán
Faculty Evaluator: Heidi LaMoreaux, PhD
Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003
invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British
polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest
that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the
last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed
killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number
(1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during
the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.
ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not
covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and
Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities
refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414
adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at
least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as
opposed to natural cause.
Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant
narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being
perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is ill
conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored
2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths
for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent were
attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a
low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US
forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are directly
US perpetrated.
Even with the lower confirmed figures, by the end of 2006, an average of
5,000 Iraqis had been killed every month by US forces since the
beginning of the occupation. However, the rate of fatalities in 2006 was
twice as high as the overall average, meaning that the American average
in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or over 300 Iraqis every day.
With the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.
Schwartz points out that the logic to this carnage lies in a statistic
released by the US military and reported by the Brookings Institute: for
the first four years of the occupation the American military sent over
1,000 patrols each day into hostile neighborhoods, looking to capture or
kill “insurgents” and “terrorists.” (Since February 2007, the number has
increased to nearly 5,000 patrols a day, if we include the Iraqi troops
participating in the American surge.) Each patrol invades an average of
thirty Iraqi homes a day, with the mission to interrogate, arrest, or
kill suspects. In this context, any fighting age man is not just a
suspect, but a potentially lethal adversary. Our soldiers are told not
to take any chances (see Story #9).
According to US military statistics, again reported by the Brookings
Institute, these patrols currently result in just under 3,000 firefights
every month, or just under an average of one hundred per day (not
counting the additional twenty-five or so involving our Iraqi allies).
Thousands of patrols result in thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths and
unconscionably brutal detentions.
Iraqis’ attempts to escape the violence have resulted in a refugee
crisis of mammoth proportion. According to the United Nations Refugee
Agency and the International Organization for Migration, in 2007 almost
5 million Iraqis had been displaced by violence in their country, the
vast majority of which had fled since 2003. Over 2.4 million vacated
their homes for safer areas within Iraq, up to 1.5 million were living
in Syria, and over 1 million refugees were inhabiting Jordan, Iran,
Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Gulf States. Iraq’s refugees, increasing by
an average of almost 100,000 every month, have no legal work options in
most host states and provinces and are increasingly desperate.1
Yet more Iraqis continue to flee their homes than the numbers returning,
despite official claims to the contrary. Thousands fleeing say security
is as bad as ever, and that to return would be to accept death. Most of
those who return are subsequently displaced again.
Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail quote an Iraqi engineer now working at a
restaurant in Damascus, “Return to Iraq? There is no Iraq to return to,
my friend. Iraq only exists in our dreams and memories.”
Another interviewee told the authors, “The US military say Fallujah is
safe now while over 800 men are detained there under the worst
conditions. . . . At least 750 out of the 800 detainees are not
resistance fighters, but people who refused to collaborate with
occupation forces and their tails.” (Iraqis who collaborate with
occupation forces are commonly referred to as “tails of the Americans.”)
Another refugee from Baghdad said, “I took my family back home in
January. The first night we arrived, Americans raided our house and kept
us all in one room while their snipers used our rooftop to shoot at
people. I decided to come back here [Damascus] the next morning after a
horrifying night that we will never forget.”
Citation
1. “The Iraqi Displacement Crisis,” Refugees International, March 3, 2008.
UPDATE BY MICHAEL SCHWARTZ
The mortality statistics cited in “Is the United States Killing 10,000
Iraqis Every Month?” were based on another article suitable for Project
Censored recognition, a scientific investigation of deaths caused by the
war in Iraq. The original article, published in Lancet in 2006, received
some dismissive coverage when it was released, and then disappeared from
view as the mainstream media returned to reporting biased estimates that
placed Iraqi casualties at about one-tenth the Lancet estimates. The
corporate media blackout of the original study extended to my article as
well, and has continued unabated, though the Lancet article has
withstood several waves of criticism, while being confirmed and updated
by other studies (Censored 2006, #2).
By early 2008, the best estimate, based on extrapolations and
replications of the Lancet study, was that 1.2 million Iraqis had died
as a consequence of the war. This figure has not, to my knowledge, been
reported in any mass media outlet in the United States.
The blackout of the casualty figures was matched by a similar blackout
of other main evidence in my article: that the Bush administration
military strategy in Iraq assures vast property destruction and
lethality on a daily basis. Rules of engagement that require the
approximately one thousand US patrols each day to respond to any hostile
act with overwhelming firepower—small arms, artillery, and air
power—guarantee that large numbers of civilians will suffer and die. But
the mainstream media refuses to cover this mayhem, even after the Winter
Soldier meetings in March 2008 featured over one hundred Iraq veterans
who testified to their own participation in what they call “atrocity
producing situations.” (see Story #9)
The effectiveness of the media blackout is vividly illustrated by an
Associated Press poll conducted in February 2007, which asked a
representative sample of US residents how many Iraqis had died as a
result of the war. The average respondent thought the number was under
10,000, about 2 percent of the actual total at that time. This
remarkable mass ignorance, like so many other elements of the Iraq War
story, received no coverage in the mass media, not even by the
Associated Press, which commissioned the study.
The Iraq Veterans Against the War has made the brutality of the
occupation their special activist province. The slaughter of the Iraqi
people is the foundation of their demand for immediate and full
withdrawal of US troops, and the subject of their historic Winter
Soldier meetings in Baltimore. Though there was no mainstream US media
coverage of this event, the live streaming on Pacifica Radio and on the
IVAW website reached a huge audience—including a vast number of active
duty soldiers—with vivid descriptions of atrocities committed by the US
war machine. A growing number of independent news sites now feature
regular coverage of this aspect of the war, including Democracy Now!,
Tom Dispatch, Dahr Jamail’s MidEast Dispatches, Informed Comment,
Antiwar.com, and ZNet.
UPDATE BY MAKI AL-NAZZAL AND DAHR JAMAIL
The promotion of US general David Petraeus to head CENTCOM, and General
Raymond Odierno to replace Petraeus as commanding general of the
Multi-National Force in Iraq, provoked a lot of anger amongst Iraqis in
both Syria and Jordan. The two generals who convinced US and
international society of improvement in Iraq do not seem to have
succeeded in convincing Iraqi refugees of their success.
“Just like the Bush Administration decorated Paul Bremer (former head of
the Coalition Provisional Authority), they are rewarding others who
participated in the destruction to Iraq,” stated Muhammad Shamil, an
Iraqi journalist who fled Iraq to Syria in 2006. “What they call
violence was concentrated in some parts of Iraq, but now spread to be
all over the country, thanks to US war heroes. People are getting
killed, evicted or detained by the thousands, from Basra (South) to
Mosul (North).”
Other Iraqi refugees seem to have changed attitudes regarding their
hopes to return. Compared to when this story was published in March
2008, the refugee crisis continues to deepen. This is exacerbated by the
fact that most Iraqis have no intention of returning home. Instead, they
are looking for permanent residence in other countries.
“I decided to stop dreaming of going back home and find myself a new
home anywhere in the world if I could,” said thirty-two-year-old Maha
Numan in Syria, “I have been a refugee for three years now living on the
dream of return, but I decided to stop dreaming. I have lost faith in
all leaders of the world after the surges of Basra, Sadr City and now
Mosul. This seems to be endless and one has to work harder on finding a
safe haven for one’s family.”
Iraqis in Syria know a lot more of the news about their country than
most journalists. At an Internet café in Damascus, each of them calls
his hometown and reports the happenings of the day to other Iraqi
refugees. News of ongoing violence across much of Iraq convinces them to
remain abroad.
“There were four various explosions in Fallujah today,” said Salam Adel,
who worked as a translator for US forces in Fallujah in 2005. “And they
say it is safe to go back! Damn them, go back for what? For roadside
bombs or car bombs?”
It has been important, politically, for the Bush administration to claim
that the situation in Iraq is improving. This claim has been assisted by
a complicit corporate media. However, the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria,
and over 750,000 in Jordan, will tell you differently. Otherwise, they
would not remain outside of Iraq.
To obtain updated information on the refugee crisis, see
About Project Censored:
Founded by Carl Jensen in 1976, Project Censored is a media research
program working in cooperation with numerous independent media groups in
the US. Project Censored’s principle objective is training of SSU
students in media research and First Amendment issues and the advocacy
for, and protection of, free press rights in the United States. Project
Censored has trained over 1,500 students in investigative research in
the past three decades.
Through a partnership of faculty, students, and the community, Project
Censored conducts research on important national news stories that are
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media. Each year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the top 25
most censored nationally important news stories in the yearbook,
Censored: Media Democracy in Action, which is released in September.
Recent Censored books have been published in Spanish, Italian and Arabic.
The Project works in cooperation with SSU academic classes Sociology of
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research and participate in writing the annual yearbook. Additionally,
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Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year
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order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam
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Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike
Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are featured in the yearbook,
Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News.
_______________________________________________
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