The Nation: Iraq's Shocking Updated Human Toll - 4.5 Million Displaced, 5 Million Orphans, Widows...

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/123818/iraq%27s_shocking_human_toll%3A_about_1_million_killed%2C_4.5_million_displaced%2C_1-2_million_widows%2C_5_million_orphans/

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. Posted February 2, 2009.

Now that Bush is gone, perhaps we can honestly face the damage we have wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it.

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...

... So we have, at present, between 800,000 and 1.3 million "excess deaths" as we approach the six-year anniversary of this war.

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[bottomtheweaver]

1. G-word.

And that is what our nation will be remembered for. Thanks Bushler.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Everyone needs to read this

x(

[Hissyspit]

3. I'll be back to kick it later this morning. nt

[aquart]

4. And lots of angry, America-hating children.

Who will teach their children. We have centuries of enemies of never had before. Thanks, George.

[snot]

5. K&R'd.

[K Gardner]

6. Recommended with horrific sorrow. n/t

[malaise]

7. But, but, but

Condi is proud of liberating Iraq.

[BeFree]

8. And it co$t us how much?

And oil went how high as the war machine rolled on and over Iraq?
And now, with a semblance of peace in Iraq, oil price$ go down?

So, after all this, just how did it benefit us or the rest of the world?
Eh, bush? Just what the fuck did you do?

[OneBlueSky]

9. and we STILL haven't found those WMDs . . .

we have, however, pretty much destroyed the country's infrastructure; contaminated a good hunk of the landscape with depleted uranium; left untold numbers of unexploded cluster bomb remnants where children can find and play with them; and trod on the nation's cultural history, artifacts, and civilization so as to almost wipe them out . . .

and we wonder why a good portion of their population hates Americans, and will for generations to come . . .

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

Senseless, needless...inexcusable.

[slipslidingaway]

11. K&R :( n/t

[TheBigotBasher]

12. Iraq also suffers from 50% unemployment

The Iraqi Government looks more to Iran than the US and the whole of the Middle East has essentially been plunged into crisis. From Afghanistan to Israel, Bush policy in the region was a disaster. He may have "made America" safer, but only by placing live explosives across the rest of the World.

[Hissyspit]

13. .

[Mnemosyne]

14. Heart-breaking. KnR. n/t

[slipslidingaway]

15. Kick n/t