Every day is like September 11, Iraqis say

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http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2007/September/focusoniraq_September58.xml§ion=focusoniraq

9 September 2007

BAGHDAD - When the dust of a devastating blast that rocked an inner Baghdad suburb six weeks ago had settled, Um Wafa’a was a widow.

Her husband was one of dozens of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time — in Karrada neighbourhood on a Thursday afternoon in late July when it was crowded with shoppers ahead of the Muslim day of rest.

Um Wafa’a says while the world will next week mourn the loss of those killed in the September 11 attacks in the United States six years ago, they will hardly shed a tear for the car bomb dead of Baghdad.

In her eyes at least, the attack on the World Trade Centre and the bomb that killed her husband on July 26 are directly linked.

“I believe our suffering began on September 11,” 44-year-old Um Wafa’a told AFP. “Now we are daily paying the price of the actions of the terrorists.”

The independent Internet site Iraq Body Count has come up with a figure of almost 80,000 dead, but says this is only an approximation based on media reports. snip

A statistical study by US researchers published in October last year sparked controversy when it estimated that some 655,000 Iraqi civilians had died from war-related causes since the start of the occupation.

Whatever the true total, the figure continues to rise rapidly.