A Fairly Average Day
The Independent reports that " More than 120 people were killed in one of the bloodiest days of the Iraq conflict yesterday".
The Iraq conflict began on 20 March 2003, one thousand and twenty-three days ago. A statistical survey in the Lancet reported in October 2004 that civilian casualties probably numbered about 100,000. Clearly, with fourteen months of occupation, insurgency and precision munition deployment separating then from now, this figure is badly out of date; but since the good guys don't do body counts it is, unfortunately, the best I can do. One hundred thousand civilians divided between one thousand and twenty-three days makes ninety-seven and three-quarters civilians. Since the hundred thousand figure is an underestimate, it seems quite possible that, far from being one of the war's bloodiest days, yesterday was just a little bit above average.
Of course, it depends what you mean by conflict, as well. The forces of freedom invaded on 20 March 2003, but as a precautionary measure they softened Iraq up with the 1990 turkey shoot and the sanctions, which were imposed when Saddam Hussein allowed April Glaspie to seduce him into Kuwait and were systematically used by the United States and the United States' little helper as an excuse for starving and depriving the Iraqi people. Between 1990 and 1998, according to the former UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, about 600,000 children died from malnutrition as a result of the turkey shoot and the sanctions.
Eight years is two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two days. Six hundred thousand potential terrorists over two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two days is a little over two hundred and five potential terrorists per day. That's if you only count the children.
So it seems that critics are being unduly pessimistic when they claim that "Yesterday's death toll ... shows the state of near anarchy in Iraq in stark contrast to repeated claims by President George Bush and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that the security situation is improving." The security situation may not be up to much, but the humanitarian situation - and this quagmire is, we have been informed, a deeply humanitarian quagmire - is better now than before the invasion. Surely we should be proud. It's enough to make you wonder why those insurgents would bother blowing anyone up.
The Iraq conflict began on 20 March 2003, one thousand and twenty-three days ago. A statistical survey in the Lancet reported in October 2004 that civilian casualties probably numbered about 100,000. Clearly, with fourteen months of occupation, insurgency and precision munition deployment separating then from now, this figure is badly out of date; but since the good guys don't do body counts it is, unfortunately, the best I can do. One hundred thousand civilians divided between one thousand and twenty-three days makes ninety-seven and three-quarters civilians. Since the hundred thousand figure is an underestimate, it seems quite possible that, far from being one of the war's bloodiest days, yesterday was just a little bit above average.
Of course, it depends what you mean by conflict, as well. The forces of freedom invaded on 20 March 2003, but as a precautionary measure they softened Iraq up with the 1990 turkey shoot and the sanctions, which were imposed when Saddam Hussein allowed April Glaspie to seduce him into Kuwait and were systematically used by the United States and the United States' little helper as an excuse for starving and depriving the Iraqi people. Between 1990 and 1998, according to the former UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, about 600,000 children died from malnutrition as a result of the turkey shoot and the sanctions.
Eight years is two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two days. Six hundred thousand potential terrorists over two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two days is a little over two hundred and five potential terrorists per day. That's if you only count the children.
So it seems that critics are being unduly pessimistic when they claim that "Yesterday's death toll ... shows the state of near anarchy in Iraq in stark contrast to repeated claims by President George Bush and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that the security situation is improving." The security situation may not be up to much, but the humanitarian situation - and this quagmire is, we have been informed, a deeply humanitarian quagmire - is better now than before the invasion. Surely we should be proud. It's enough to make you wonder why those insurgents would bother blowing anyone up.
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