What is the latest tally for the number of civilian deaths attributable to the military action?
I am aware that the existing sanctions might anyway have caused more such deaths than comparable countries in over a comparable timescale, and also that the regime itself might in some cases have specifically targetted civilians.
(I am also aware that even though I seek a factual answer this might become a right old ding dong. Mods, feel free if GD beckons)
This is a question that defies rigor. The link above, for example, counts casualties from an “inter-ethnic fight” in Masul. These are presumably deaths caused by Iraqis to Iraqis. Are they counted?
Kill one person it’s a tragedy, kill a million it’s a statistic.
Many thanks ratatosk, and good point Bricker.
Might I suggest that we do count casualties due to lawlessness and inter-ethnic strife since, whatever the evils of Saddam’s regime, these would simply not have occurred but for the invasion.
Of course, we must also subtract the number killed in an average month by the regime itself or the sanctions brought about by the regime’s actions over and above other comparable countries’ non-military deaths in one month since these would have continued without the invasion.
I wonder how the distinction is made in some cases between civilians, and military dressed as civilians.
I think it’s a good question, but it misses an important dimension, namely, the Iraqi military. First of all, the majority of them were conscripts and at this point there’s quite a lot of evidence to show that at least in some geographic areas, they were extorted into fighting by fear for themselves or their families.
But even beyond that, the question as to whether this war was just has to take into account the number of persons on all sides who lost their lives, regardless of their motivation.
There are not good statistics on the total number of Iraqi military we killed; it is certainly several thousand. Some estimates go as high as ten thousand, but I think these are probably inflated.
–Cliffy
the number 200,000 disappeared people under Saddam’s 23 year regime keeps coming up. That equals about 725 a month.
Sanctions have killed between 500,000-1,700,000. So that comes to about 3500-11,400 a month.