Some comments on death and troops

Norman Geras makes some fair and necessary points about the balance to be struck in supporting or indeed opposing the use of physical force against tyranny.

He won’t comment on the Lancet figures but I will: personally the figures seem incredible but, like Geras, I am no expert in this field.

If there had been 655,000 deaths in the last 3 years this necessarily means two things: a) bodies and burials – where are all the bodies and where are they buried and b) injuries:

I don’t know if there is an accepted ratio between deaths and injuries but, aside from systematic and industrial slaughter methods like Auschwitz the ratio has to be at least 1:1 or perhaps higher. Where are the injured?

I have recently been to Iraqi Kurdistan and, if I understand the methodological basis of the report, would have seen or heard of considerable numbers of politically motivated deaths. I think I am right in saying, however, that “only” 99 people have been killed (in two terrorist bomb attacks in Erbil in 2004) in the last period of time.

So I have gone further than Geras in venturing opinions on Lancet. I think we need a highly competent and accessible debate on how these figures have been arrived at.

But I don’t want to enter a discussion with macabre calculations: for example, the war would have been justified if, for instance, those who died in one year were less than those murdered by Saddam on average in one year etc

As for the debate about troops out. Parts of the left have been arguing for Troops Out Now since before they went in. I and others have resisted this because we feared, as did our contacts in Iraq, that their withdrawal would cause worse calamities.

Troops Out Now is almost a permanent slogan and single transferable policy for parts of the left. Troops In Now isn’t a permanent policy. It’s entirely possible that like the stopped clock which is right twice a day Troops Out is coming.

Or rather it would probably be a question of replacing US and UK troops with others. Some talk of Syria and Iran and the Daily Telegraph remarks in an editorial today that “such a move would be wholly unacceptable to a Bush Administration that has excoriated both these states as sponsors of terrorism. Setting thieves to catch thieves may make for entertaining fiction, but it has no place in global diplomacy.”

The former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi spoke at a recent meeting in the Commons where he talked of European and Arab forces (without borders with Iraq) replacing the current multinational forces. The issue for me is one of practicability.

In the meantime, the issue neglected by the anti-war left is how to support civil society forces such as the trade unions. It should be a key priority for the British labour movement.

Gary Kent
Director LFIQ personal capacity

I have noticed this written parliamentary answer too

Iraq

Mr. Winnick: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if she will obtain from the Iraqi authorities the estimated number of those murdered so far during 2006 as a result of terrorism.

Dr. Howells: The Iraqi Ministry of Health has released figures on a monthly basis through 2006. The figures from January to August 2006 state that 10,034
Iraqis died violently, where the cause of death was recorded as ‘military’ or ‘terrorist’ action. The vast majority of these were recorded as being a result of ‘terrorist’ attacks. The Ministry of Health points out that this figure includes all Iraqis, including civilians, Iraqi security forces and insurgents, except those in the Kurdish provinces.

There continues to be no comprehensive or reliable assessment of violent deaths in Iraq.