Iraq's Shocking Human Toll:
About 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million
Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans
by John Tirman, The Nation magazine
www.informationclearinghouse.info/,
February 02, 2009
We are now able to estimate the number
of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration.
Looking at the empirical evidence of Bush's war legacy will put
his claims of victory in perspective. Of course, even by his standards
-- "stability" -- the jury is out. Most independent
analysts would say it's too soon to judge the political outcome.
Nearly six years after the invasion, the country remains riven
by sectarian politics and major unresolved issues, like the status
of Kirkuk.
We have a better grasp of the human costs
of the war. For example, the United Nations estimates that there
are about 4.5 million displaced Iraqis -- more than half of them
refugees -- or about one in every six citizens. Only 5 percent
have chosen to return to their homes over the past year, a period
of reduced violence from the high levels of 2005-07. The availability
of healthcare, clean water, functioning schools, jobs and so forth
remains elusive. According to Unicef, many provinces report that
less than 40 percent of households have access to clean water.
More than 40 percent of children in Basra, and more than 70 percent
in Baghdad, cannot attend school.
The mortality caused by the war is also
high. Several household surveys were conducted between 2004 and
2007. While there are differences among them, the range suggests
a congruence of estimates. But none have been conducted for eighteen
months, and the two most reliable surveys were completed in mid-2006.
The higher of those found 650,000 "excess deaths" (mortality
attributable to war); the other yielded 400,000. The war remained
ferocious for twelve to fifteen months after those surveys were
finished and then began to subside. Iraq Body Count, a London
NGO that uses English-language press reports from Iraq to count
civilian deaths, provides a means to update the 2006 estimates.
While it is known to be an undercount, because press reports are
incomplete and Baghdad-centric, IBC nonetheless provides useful
trends, which are striking. Its estimates are nearing 100,000,
more than double its June 2006 figure of 45,000. (It does not
count nonviolent excess deaths -- from health emergencies, for
example -- or insurgent deaths.) If this is an acceptable marker,
a plausible estimate of total deaths can be calculated by doubling
the totals of the 2006 household surveys, which used a much more
reliable and sophisticated method for estimates that draws on
long experience in epidemiology. So we have, at present, between
800,000 and 1.3 million "excess deaths" as we approach
the six-year anniversary of this war.
This gruesome figure makes sense when
reading of claims by Iraqi officials that there are 1-2 million
war widows and 5 million orphans. This constitutes direct empirical
evidence of total excess mortality and indirect, though confirming,
evidence of the displaced and the bereaved and of general insecurity.
The overall figures are stunning: 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million
widows, 5 million orphans, about 1 million dead -- in one way
or another, affecting nearly one in two Iraqis.
By any sensible measure, it would be difficult
to describe this as a victory of any kind. It speaks volumes about
the repair work we must do for Iraqis, and it should caution us
against the savage wars we are prone to. Now that Bush is gone,
perhaps the United States can honestly face the damage we have
wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it.
John Tirman is Executive Director of MIT's
Center for International Studies.
Iraq page
International War Crimes & Criminals
Home Page