Iraq Aims to Limit Mortality Data

[ECH1969]

Since July 2005, the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, which is controlled by the Iraqi health ministry, has supplied U.N. investigators with raw figures from morgues on civilians who have died violently. The health ministry's department of operation has provided the United Nations with similar figures from the country's hospitals.

Those numbers attracted relatively little attention until June, when the U.N. human rights office in Baghdad estimated that more than 100 people a day were dying in Iraq. In August, the office recorded the largest spike of violence since the invasion, with more than 6,600 people killed in Iraq in July and August.

A spokesman for the prime minister subsequently voiced suspicion to the United Nations that the health ministry, which is controlled by officials linked to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, was overstating the numbers, according to Qazi.

Qazi said the prime minister's office sent a letter to the Iraqi health minister instructing him to "no longer release data on mortality." The prime minister's communications director, the letter stated, would be responsible for "centralizing and disseminating such information in the future," Qazi wrote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901799.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/iraq

[Lindacooks]

1. Well, obviously, withholding the data will fix EVERYTHING!!

:sarcasm:

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Is this the decision of a sovereign state?

Or was it directed by Iraq's Imperial overlords.

[saigon68]

6. It was directed by the CHIMPANZEE'S handlers

[flyarm]

3. from dec 10 2003 * had the iraqi's stop counting dead!

from my files..fly



http://www.veteransforpeace.org/AP_Iraq_to_stop_121003.htm

AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead

Wed Dec 10,2003 2:17 PM ET

By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq



The U.S. military doesn't count civilian casualties from its wars, saying only that it tries to minimize civilian deaths.



Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, called that policy irresponsible.



"That deliberate ignorance of the past risks condemning the U.S. military to repeating its mistakes into the future and needlessly risking further civilian deaths," he said by telephone from New York.



Roth said the government doesn't count because "politically, it's embarrassing to talk about civilian casualties in one's war effort."



The Associated Press conducted a major investigation of Iraq (news - web sites)'s wartime civilian casualties, documenting the deaths of 3,240 civilians between March 20 and April 20. That investigation, conducted in May and June, surveyed about half of Iraq's hospitals, and reported that the real number of civilian deaths was sure to be much higher.



fly

[fooj]

4. Like the Rude Pundit said...

Here we Democrats sit staring longingly like puppies at the pound, hoping that some kind of stranger will take us home when, instead we should be motherfuckin' pitbulls ready to tear some ass, daring the dogcatchers to put us down.

All of this bullshit must come to an end. Now.

[Judi Lynn]

5. The Prime Minister is a traitor to humanity. God help him if justice

catches up with him in his lifetime, and I pray it will.

Allowing _Bush to slaughter his countrymen/women/children with absolutely no accounting to note their passing is a sin against life itself.

Obviously, someone from the _Bush administration has threatened him into keeping their filthy secret from the rest of the world.

_Bushies, you never surprise us now. We fully anticipate the worst possible actions ever perpetrated in history from your camp.

[PurityOfEssence]

7. Data sucks

It just gets in the way of preconceived policy. Once you have the answers, why bother with the pesky nagging of annoying facts? Ideology is king, and the future is one of intellectual monarchy.

[HuffleClaw]

8. bwhahaahhhaaaaaa

now its al-sadr's fault! hahahahahaaa. the ANTI-US cleric!!! nice try.

[leftchick]

9. this makes the Lancet study all the more credible

it was not conducted by politicians with an agenda.

[rodeodance]

10. you are right. REC

[katinmn]

11. Manipulating data. Hmm. Why does that sound familiar?

[RedEarth]

12. KR

[Barrett808]

13. k & r

[sabra]

14. Iraq 'hiding true casualty figures'

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20617973-1702,00.html

Iraq 'hiding true casualty figures'

From correspondents in Paris

THE Iraqi Government has told medical authorities not to reveal to the UN the true extent of civilian casualties in the country's conflict, French newspaper Le Monde said today.

The daily quoted a telegram sent by the head of the UN mission in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, to headquarters in New York, in which he said: "This development risks damaging the capacity of the UN's Assistance Mission to report the number of civilians killed or injured."

Since July 2005 the UN has used data provided by Baghdad's Forensic Institute and the Iraqi health ministry to form an estimate. The estimate "was certainly imperfect but an indicator nonetheless of the growing number of civilian victims", the telegram said.
The latest report said that 3590 civilians died a violent death in July and 3009 in August, figures which it said were "unprecedented".

But the telegram quoted by Le Monde said that on September 21, one day after publication of the report, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wrote to the health ministry with instructions not to disclose more figures.

[babylonsister]

15. Why would Iraq benefit from hiding these figures? So the

world won't realize how bad it is over there? Pretty disrespectful to so many people who have lost their lives...

[Dhalgren]

16. According to Juan Cole, the US government has been holding

secret meetings in Jordan with elements of the Sunni insurgency and members of the Sunni political parties. That was the reason Maliki phoned Bush worried that Bush was about to replace him. Maliki is under great pressure to make the US look good, at least that's my take on it...

[babylonsister]

17. Makes sense, and would also support somewhat dimson's

attitude about the Lancet report, i.e., the amount of dead Iraqis being exaggerated.
I'm so sick of being lied to!

[gratuitous]

18. You presume an independent Iraqi government

But the government of Iraq is beholden to the Bush administration, not the people of Iraq. Yes, it would make sense to have accurate casualty reports, including where those casualties happen and under what circumstances. But the president has stated publicly that he doesn't believe he sees what is happening before the world's horrified eyes, and the Iraqi government knows its first duty is to prop up the president that props it up.

[twilight_sailing]

24. What about the Iraqi people?

How does this development increase their confidence in their government?

It seems to me that they really do not have a government of their own. Seems that's obvious.

[spindrifter]

19. The other thing Malike is protecting

is his own butt. If the truth were out there about the numbers of civilians killed, he would be even more vulnerable as a do-nothing who couldn't come up with even one idea to try for a cease-fire. He will have to go soon, just like BushCo.

[MonteSano]

20. k&r

[Heidi]

21. Kick. (nt)

[truthpusher]

22. Iraq PM Blocks Civilian Death Toll Release

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/iraq/main2111951.shtml

Iraq PM Blocks Civilian Death Toll Release

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 20, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(AP) Iraq's prime minister has barred the Health Ministry from releasing alarming casualty figures that showed violence in Iraq was killing 100 civilians a day and provided a rare insight into the worsening sectarian conflict, according to an internal U.N. memo obtained Friday.

The memo from top U.N. envoy for Iraq Ashraf Qazi to several senior U.N. officials said Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's office had twice instructed the ministry not to release the numbers to the United Nations and that his office would now be responsible for releasing any such information.

(snip)

link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/iraq/main2111951.shtml

[Zorra]

23. The headline should include: .....Until after US election. n/t