Is The United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?
By Michael Schwartz
A state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006 issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British
medical journal) concluded that—as of a year ago—600,000 Iraqis had died violently due to the war in Iraq. That is, the
Iraqi death rate for the first 39 months of the war was just about 15,000 per month.
That wasn’t the worst of it, because the death rate was increasing precipitously, and during the first half of 2006 the
monthly rate was approximately 30,000 per month, a rate that no doubt has increased further during the ferocious
fighting associated with the current American surge.
The U.S. and British governments quickly dismissed these results as “methodologically flawed,” even though the
researchers used standard procedures for measuring mortality in war and disaster zones. (They visited a random set of
homes and asked the residents if anyone in their household had died in the last few years, recording the details, and
inspecting death certificates in the vast majority of cases.) The two belligerent governments offered no concrete
reasons for rejecting the study’s findings, and they ignored the fact that they had sponsored identical studies
(conducted by some of the same researchers) in other disaster areas, including Darfur and Kosovo. The reasons for this
rejection were, however, clear enough: the results were simply too devastating for the culpable governments to
acknowledge. (Secretly the British government later admitted that it was “a tried and tested way to measuring mortality
in conflict zones”; but it has never publicly admitted its validity).
Reputable researchers have accepted the Lancet study’s results as valid with virtually no dissent. Juan Cole, the most
visible American Middle East scholar, summarized it in a particularly vivid comment: “the US misadventure in Iraq is
responsible [in a little over three years] for setting off the killing of twice as many civilians as Saddam managed to
polish off in 25 years.”
Despite the scholarly consensus, the governments’ denials have been quite effective from a public education point of
view, and the few news items that mention the Lancet stody bracket it with official rebuttals. One BBC report, for
example, mentioned the figure in an article headlined “Huge Rise in Iraqi Death Tolls,” and quoted at length from
President Bush’s public rebuttal, in which he said that the methodology was "pretty well discredited,” adding that
“six-hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just... it's not credible.” As a consequence of this sort of
coverage, most Americans probably believe that Bush’s December 2005 figure of 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (less than
10% of the actual total) is the best estimate of Iraqi deaths up to that time.
COUNTING HOW MANY IRAQIS THE OCCUPATION HAS KILLED
These shocking statistics are made all the more horrific when we realize that among the 600,000 or so victims of Iraqi
war violence, the largest portion have been killed by the American military, not by carbombings or death squads, or
violent criminals — or even all these groups combined.
The Lancet interviewers asked their Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died and who was responsible. The families
were very good at the cause of death, telling the reporters that over half (56%) were due to gunshots, with an eighth
due each to car bombs(13%), air strikes (13%) and other ordinance (14%). Only 4% were due to unknown causes.
The families were not as good at identifying who was responsible. Although they knew, for example, that air strike
victims were killed by the occupation, and that carbomb victims were killed by insurgents, the gunshot and ordinance
fatalities often occurred in firefights or in circumstances with no witnesses. Many times, therefore, they could not
tell for sure who was responsible. Only were certain, and the interviewers did not record the responsible party if
“households had any uncertainly” as to who fired the death shot.
The results are nevertheless staggering for those of us who read the American press: for the deaths that the victims
families knew for sure who the perpetrator was, U.S. forces (or their “Coalition of the Willing” allies) were
responsible for 56%. That is, we can be very confident that the Coalition had killed at least 180,000 Iraqis by the
middle of 2006. Moreover, we have every reason to believe that the U.S. is responsible for its pro rata share (or more)
of the unattributed deaths. That means that the U.S. and its allies may well have killed upwards of 330,000 Iraqis by
the middle of 2006.
The remainder can be attributed to the insurgents, criminals, and to Iraqi forces. And let’s be very clear here: car
bombs, the one source that was most easy for victims’ families to identify, was responsible for 13% of the deaths, about
80,000 people, or about 2000 per month. This is horrendous, but it is far less than half of the confirmed American
total, and less than a quarter of the probable American total.
Even if we work with the lower, confirmed, figured of 180,000 Iraqi deaths caused by the occupation firepower, which
yields an average of just over 5,000 Iraqis killed every month by U.S. forces and our allies since the beginning of the
war. And we have to remember that the rate of fatalities was twice as high in 2006 as the overall average, meaning that
the American average in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or something over 300 Iraqis every day, including Sundays.
With the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.
HOW COME WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS?
These figures sound impossible to most Americans. Certainly 300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day would be headline
news, over and over again. And yet, the electronic and print media simply do not tell us that the U.S. is killing all
these people. We hear plenty about car bombers and death squads, but little about Americans killing Iraqis, except the
occasional terrorist, and the even more occasional atrocity story.
How, then, is the US accomplishing this carnage, and why is it not newsworthy? The answer lies in another amazing
statistic: this one released by the U.S. military and reported by the highly respectable Brookings Institution: for the
past four years, the American military sends out something over 1000 patrols each day into hostile neighborhoods,
looking to capture or kill insurgents and terrorists. (Since February, the number has increased to nearly 5,000 patrols
a day, if we include the Iraqi troops participating in the American surge.)
These thousands of patrols regularly turn into thousands of Iraqi deaths because these patrols are not the “walk in the
sun” that they appear to be in our mind’s eye. Actually, as independent journalist Nir Rosen described vividly and
agonizingly in his indispensable book, In the Belly of the Green Bird, they involve a kind of energetic brutality that
is only occasionally reported by an embedded American mainstream journalist.
This brutality is all very logical, once we understand the purpose and process of these patrols. American soldiers and
marines are sent into hostile communities where virtually the entire population is supports the insurgency. They often
have a list of suspects’ addresses; and their job is to interrorgate or arrest or kill the suspect; and search the house
for incriminating evidence, particularly arms and ammunition, but also literature, video equipment, and other items that
the insurgency depends upon for its political and military activities. When they don’t have lists of suspects, they
conduct “house-to-house” searches, looking for suspicious behavior, individuals or evidence.
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: in many instances, for example, knocking on doors could invite gunshots through the doors.
Their instructions are therefore to use the element of surprise whenever the situation appears to be dangerous—to break
down doors, shoot at anything suspicious, and throw grenades into rooms or homes where there is any chance of
resistance. If they encounter tangible resistance, they can call in artillery and/or air power rather than try to invade
a building.
Here is how two Iraqi civilians described these patrols to Asia Times reporter Pepe Escobar:
“Hussein and Hasan confirm that the Americans usually ‘come at night, sometimes by day, always protected by
helicopters.’ They "sometimes bomb houses, sometimes arrest people, sometimes throw missiles’”
If they encounter no resistance, these patrols can track down 30 or so suspects, or inspect several dozen homes, in a
days work. That is, our 1000 or so patrols can invade 30,000 homes in a single day. But if an IED explodes under their
Humvee or a sniper shoots at them from nearby, then their job is transformed into finding, capturing, or killing the
perpetrator of the attack. Iraqi insurgents often set off IEDs and invite these firefights, in order to stall the
patrols prevent the soldiers from forcibly entering 30 or so homes, violently accosting their residents, and perhaps
beating, arresting, or simply humiliating the residents.
The battles triggered by IEDs and sniper attacks almost always involve the buildings surrounding the incident, since
that is where the insurgents take cover to avoid the American counter-attack. Americans, therefore, regular shoot into
these buildings where the perpetrators are suspected of hiding, with all the attendant dangers of killing other people.
The rules of engagement for American soldiers include efforts to avoid killing civilians, and there are many accounts of
restraint because civilians are visibly in the line of fire. But if they are in hot pursuit of a perpetrator, their
rules of engagement make it clear that capturing or killing the insurgent takes precedent over civilian safety.
This sounds pretty tame, and not capable of generating the statistics that the Lancet study documented. But the sheer
quantity of American patrols—1000 each day—and the sheer quantity of the confrontations inside people’s homes, the
responses to sniper and IED attacks, and the ensuring firefights add up to mass slaughter.
The cumulative brutality of these thousands of patrols can be culled from the recent inquest into the suspected war
crimes committed in the city of Haditha back in November 19, 2005. The investigation seeks to ascertain whether American
marines deliberately murdered 24 civilians including executing with point blank head shots nineteen unarmed women,
children and older men in a single room, apparently in retribution for the death of one of their comrades earlier in the
day. These horrific charges have made the incident newsworthy and propelled the investigation.
But it is the defense’s version of the story that makes the Haditha useful in understanding the translation of American
patrols into hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths. First Lt. William T. Kallop, the highest ranking officer in Haditha
that day, told the military hearing that he had ordered a patrol “to ‘clear’ an Iraqi home in Haditha after a roadside
bomb had killed a Marine” earlier in the day. Later, after the firefight that this action generated, he went to inspect
the home and was shocked to discover that only civilians had been killed:
“He inspected one of the homes with a Marine corporal, Hector Salinas, and found women, children and older men who had
been killed when marines threw a grenade into the room.
“‘What the hell happened, why aren’t there any insurgents here?’ Lieutenant Kallop testified that he asked aloud. ‘I
looked at Corporal Salinas, and he looked just as shocked as I did.’
It is important to keep in mind that Lt. Kallop would not have been shocked if there had been one or more insurgents
among the dead. What made the situation problematic was that all the fatalities were clearly civilians, and it led to
the possibility that they had not been in hot pursuit of an enemy combatant.
Later, however, Lt. Kallop decided that even this situation involved no misbehavior on the part of his troops, after
questioning Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who had led the patrol and commanded the military action:
“Sergeant Wuterich had told him that they had killed people [in that house] after approaching a door to it and hearing
the distinct metallic sound of an AK-47 being prepared to fire.
“‘I thought that was within the rules of engagement because the squad leader thought that he was about to kick in the
door and walk into a machine gun,’ Lieutenant Kallop said.”
According to Kallop, the soldiers were thus following the rules of engagement because if the squad leader “thought” that
he was going to be attacked (based on recognizing a noise through a closed door), he was authorized and justified to use
the full lethal force of the patrol (in this case a hand grenade), enough to kill all the people huddled within the
apartment.
The critical distinction has to do with intentionality. First Lieutenant Max D. Frank, sent to investigate the incident
somewhat later, explained this logic: “It was unfortunate what happened, sir,” Lieutenant Frank told the Marine
prosecutor, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, “but I didn’t have any reason to believe that what they had done was on purpose.”
Translated, this means that as long as the soldiers sincerely believed that their attack might capture or kill an armed
insurgent who could attack them, the rules of engagement justified their action and they were therefore not culpable of
any crime.
Note here that other alternatives were not considered. The soldiers could have decided that there was a good chance of
hurting civilians in this situation, and therefore retreated without pursuing the suspected insurgent. This would have
allowed him to get away, but it would have protected the residents of the house. This option was not considered, even
though many of us might feel that letting one or two or three insurgents escape (in a town filled with insurgents) might
be acceptable instead of risking (and ultimately ending) the lives of 19 civilians.
Later in the hearing, Major General Richard Huck, the commanding officer in charge of the Marines in Haditha,
underscored these rules of engagement in more general terms, —and also ignored the unthinkable option of letting the
insurgents get away—when he explained why he had not ordered an investigation of the deaths:
“They had occurred during a combat operation and it was not uncommon for civilians to die in such circumstances. ‘In my
mind's eye, I saw insurgent fire, I saw Kilo Company fire,’ Huck testified, via video link from the Pentagon, where he
is assistant deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. ‘I could see how 15 neutrals in those circumstances
could be killed.’”
For General Huck, and for other commanders in Iraq, once “insurgent fire”—or even the threat of insurgent fire—entered
the picture (and it certainly had earlier, when the American soldier was killed), then the actions reported by the
Marines in that Haditha home were not just legitimate(if they reported them honestly), but exemplary. They were
responding appropriately in a battlefield situation, and the death of “15 neutrals” is “not uncommon” in those
circumstances.
Let’s keep in mind, then, that the United States undertakes something over 1000 patrols each day, and lately this number
has surged to over 5000 (if we also count patrols by the Iraqi military). According to U.S. military statistics, again
reported by the Brookings Institute, these patrols patrols currently result in just under 3000 firefights every month,
or just under an average of 100 per day (not counting the additional 25 or so involving our Iraqi allies). Most of them
do not produce 24 Iraqi deaths, but the rules of engagement our soldiers are given—throwing hand grenades into buildings
holding suspected insurgents, using maximum firepower against snipers, and calling in artillery and air power against
stubborn resistance—guarantee a regular drumbeat of mortality.
It is worth recording how these events are reported in the American press, when they are noted at all. Here, for
example, is an Associated Press account of American/British patrols in Maysan province, a stronghold of the Mahdi army:
Well to the south, Iraqi officials reported as many as 36 people were killed in fierce overnight fighting that began as
British and Iraqi forces conducted house-to-house searches in Amarah, a stronghold of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia.
This brief description was part of a five paragraph account of fighting all over Iraq, part of a review under the
headline “U.S. and Iraqi forces Move on Insurgents.” It contained brief accounts of several different operations, none
of them presented as major events. There were 100 or so engagements that day, and many of them produced deaths. How
many? Based on the Lancet article, we could guess that on that day—and most days—the incident in Amarah represented
perhaps one-tenth of all the Iraqis killed by Americans that day. Over the course of June, the accumulated total
probably came to something over 10,000.
During the hearing about Haditha one of the investigators addressed the larger question that emerges from the sacrifice
of so many civilians to the cause of chasing and catching insurgents in Iraq. Lieutenant Max D. Frank, the first officer
to investigate the deaths, characterized is an “unfortunate and unintended result of local residents’ allowing insurgent
fighters to use family homes to shoot at passing American patrols.” Using a similar logic, First Lt. Adam P. Mathes, the
executive office of the company involved, argued against issuing an apology to local residents for the incident. Mathes
advocated that instead they should issue a warning to Haditha residents, that the incident was “an unfortunate thing
that happens when you let terrorists use your house to attack our troops.”
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines terror as “violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order
to intimidate a population….” The incident at Haditha was just such a violent act, and was one of about 100 that day
that Lt. Mathes hoped would intimidate the population of Haditha and other towns in Iraq from continuing to support
insurgents.
[1] Lancet 061012 – Burnham et al – Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq
The Lancet Early Online Publication, 12 October 2006
The Lancet DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69491-9
Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey
Prof Gilbert BurnhamMD a , Prof Riyadh LaftaMD b, Shannon DoocyPhD a and Les RobertsPhD a
[2] CBS 051212 – 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War
Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Killed In War
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 12, 2005
(CBS/AP)
[3] DemocracyNow 061012 – Roberts – Co-author o f Medical sTudy estimating 650,000 deaths defends research http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145222
Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal
Thursday, October 12th, 2006
[4] TomDispatch 070515 – Johnson – ending the empire
Johnson, Chalmers, “Tom Graham: Chalmers Johsnon, Ending the Empire, Tom Dispatch May 15, 2007 http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=194902
[5] Cole, Juan 061011 – Cole – Hopkins Study
Informed Comment - Oct 11, 2006 http://www.juancole.com/
by Juan Cole
655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion
[6] BBC 061011 – Huge rise in Iraqi death tolls.
Wednesday, 11 October 2006
'Huge rise' in Iraqi death tolls
[7] CBS 051212 – 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War
Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Killed In War
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 12, 2005
[9] Page 1 of 2 ROVING IN THE RED ZONE Inside Sadr City By Pepe Escobar
May 11, 2007. Asia Times
[10] Schwartz on Haditha
[11] NYT 070509 – Zielbauer – Officer says civilian toll in Haditha was a shock
New York Times
May 9, 2007
Officer Says Civilian Toll in Haditha Was a Shock
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
[12] NYT 070530 – Zielbauer – Two Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
New York Times, May 31, 2007
Defend Our Marines main page
2 Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
[13] NYT 070511 – Zielbauer – US general says his staff misled him on Haditha killings
U.S. general says his staff misled him on Haditha killings
By Paul von Zielbauer
New York Times
Friday, May 11, 2007
[15] AssociatedPress 070618 – Hurst – US and Iraqi forces move on insurgent
June 18, 2007, 5:56PM U.S. and Iraqi forces move on insurgents
By STEVEN R. HURST Associated Press Writer © 2007 The Associated Press
[16] NYT 070530 – Zielbauer – Two Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
New York Times, May 31, 2007
Defend Our Marines main page
2 Marines deny suspecting Haditha war crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
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