Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey

2006-10-17T22:40:00.000+02:00

MORTALITY AFTER THE 2003 INVASION OF IRAQ: A CROSS-SECTIONAL CLUSTER SAMPLE SURVEY

from The Lancet:

Prof Gilbert BurnhamMD a , Prof Riyadh LaftaMD b, Shannon DoocyPhD a and Les RobertsPhD a

See Comment

Summary

Background

An excess mortality of nearly 100 000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003–September, 2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate.

Methods

Between May and July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates, with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from these households was gathered.

Findings

Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3–7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9–16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

Interpretation

The number of people dying in Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death, although deaths from car bombing have increased.

Introduction

There has been widespread concern over the scale of Iraqi deaths after the invasion by the US-led coalition in March, 2003. Various methods have been used to count violent deaths, including hospital death data from the Ministry of Health, mortuary tallies, and media reports.1,2 The best known is the Iraq Body Count, which estimated that, up to September 26, 2006, between 43 491 and 48 283 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion.1 Estimates from the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior were 75% higher than those based on the Iraq Body Count from the same period.2 An Iraqi non-governmental organisation, Iraqiyun, estimated 128 000 deaths from the time of the invasion until July, 2005, by use of various sources, including household interviews.3

The US Department of Defence keeps some records of Iraqi deaths, despite initially denying that they did.4 Recently, Iraqi casualty data from the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) Significant Activities database were released.5 These data estimated the civilian casuality rate at 117 deaths per day between May, 2005, and June, 2006, on the basis of deaths that occurred in events to which the coalition responded. There also have been several surveys that assessed the burden of conflict on the population.6–8 These surveys have predictably produced substantially higher estimates than the passive surveillance reports.

Aside from violence, insufficient water supplies, non-functional sewerage, and restricted electricity supply also create health hazards.9,10 A deteriorating health service with insecure access, and the flight of health professionals adds further risks. People displaced by the on-going sectarian violence add to the number of vulnerable individuals. In many conflicts, these indirect causes have accounted for most civilian deaths.11,12

In 2004, we did a survey of 33 randomly selected clusters of 30 households with a mean of eight residents throughout Iraq to determine the excess mortality during the 17·8 months after the 2003 invasion.8 The survey estimated excess mortality of at least 98 000 (95% CI 8000–194 000) after excluding, as an outlier, the high mortality reported in the Falluja cluster. Over half of excess deaths recorded in the 2004 study were from violent causes, and about half of the violent deaths occurred in Falluja.

To determine how on-going events in Iraq have affected mortality rates subsequently, we repeated a national household survey between May and July, 2006. We measured deaths from January, 2002, to July, 2006, which included the period of the 2004 survey.

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Discussion

We estimate that, as a consequence of the coalition invasion of March 18, 2003, about 655 000 Iraqis have died above the number that would be expected in a non-conflict situation, which is equivalent to about 2·5% of the population in the study area. About 601 000 of these excess deaths were due to violent causes. Our estimate of the post-invasion crude mortality rate represents a doubling of the baseline mortality rate, which, by the Sphere standards, constitutes a humanitarian emergency.17

Our estimate of the pre-invasion crude or all-cause mortality rate is in close agreement with other sources.18,19 The post-invasion crude mortality rate increased significantly from pre-invasion figures, and showed a rising trend. The increasing number of violent deaths follows trends of bodies counted by mortuaries, as well as those reported in the media and by the Iraq Body Count.1,5,20

Application of the mortality rates reported here to the period of the 2004 survey8 gives an estimate of 112 000 (69 000–155 000) excess deaths in Iraq in that period. Thus, the data presented here validates our 2004 study, which conservatively estimated an excess mortality of nearly 100 000 as of September, 2004.

Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures.1,5 This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia,21 we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with population-based estimates.11,22–25 Between 1960 and 1990, newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years of highest violence.26 Nevertheless, surveillance tallies are important in monitoring trends over time and in the provision of individual data, and these data track closely with our own findings (figure 4).

Click to enlarge image

Figure 4. Trends in number of deaths reported by the Iraq Body Count and the MultiNational Corps-Iraq and the mortality rates found by this study

Mortality rates from violent causes have increased every year post-invasion. By mid-year 2006, 91 violent deaths had occurred in 6 months, compared with 27 post-invasion in 2003 and 77 in 2004, and 105 for 2005, suggesting that violence has escalated substantially. The attributed cause of these deaths has also changed with time. Our data show that gunfire is the major cause of death in Iraq, accounting for about half of all violent deaths. Deaths from air strikes were less commonly reported in 2006 than in 2003–04, but deaths from car explosions have increased since late 2005. The proportion of violent deaths attributed to coalition forces might have peaked in 2004; however, the actual number of Iraqi deaths attributed to coalition forces increased steadily through 2005. Deaths were not classified as being due to coalition forces if households had any uncertainty about the responsible party; consequently, the number of deaths and the proportion of violent deaths attributable to coalition forces could be conservative estimates. Distinguishing criminal murders from anti-coalition force actions was not possible in this survey.

Across Iraq, deaths and injuries from violent causes were concentrated in adolescent to middle age men. Although some were probably combatants, a number of factors would expose this group to more risk—eg, life style, automobile travel, and employment outside the home. The circumstances of a number of deaths from gunshots suggest assassinations or executions. Coalition forces have been reported as targeting all men of military age.27,28

From January, 2002, until the invasion in 2003, virtually all deaths in Iraq were from non-violent causes. The main causes of non-violent deaths were much the same as the leading causes of hospital deaths reported by the Ministry of Health in 2004 and 2005 (unpublished data). Death rates from non-violent causes remained essentially unchanged from pre-invasion levels until 2006, when they rose by 2·0 deaths per 1000 per year above the pre-invasion baseline, an increase that was not significant. We are unsure of the reason for the observed change in sex ratio of adults aged 15–59 years dying from non-violent causes between pre-invasion and post-invasion periods (table 2), or why deaths from cardiovascular causes rose after the invasion.

All surveys have potential for error and bias. The extreme insecurity during this survey could have introduced bias by restricting the size of teams, the number of supervisors, and the length of time that could be prudently spent in all locations, which in turn affected the size and nature of questionnaires. Further, calling back to households not available on the initial visit was felt to be too dangerous. Families, especially in households with combatants killed, could have hidden deaths. Under-reporting of infant deaths is a wide-spread concern in surveys of this type.29,30 Entire households could have been killed, leading to a survivor bias. The population data used for cluster selection were at least 2 years old, and if populations subsequently migrated from areas of high mortality to those with low mortality, the sample might have over-represented the high-mortality areas. The miscommunication that resulted in no clusters being interviewed in Duhuk and Muthanna resulted in our assuming that no excess deaths occurred in those provinces (with 5% of the population), which probably resulted in an underestimate of total deaths. Families could have reported deaths that did not occur, although this seems unlikely, since most reported deaths could be corroborated with a certificate. However, certificates might not be issued for young children, and in some places death certificates had stopped being issued; our 92% confirmation rate was therefore deemed to be reasonable.

Large-scale migration out of Iraq could affect our death estimates by decreasing population size. Out-migration could introduce inaccuracies if such a process took place predominantly in households with either high or low violent death history. Internal population movement would be less likely to affect results appreciably. However, the number of individual households with in-migration was much the same as those with out-migration in our survey.

Although interviewers used a robust process for identifying clusters, the potential exists for interviewers to be drawn to especially affected houses through conscious or unconscious processes. Although evidence of this bias does not exist, its potential cannot be dismissed.31 Furthermore, families might have misclassified information about the circumstances of death. Deaths could have been over or under-attributed to coalition forces on a consistent basis. The numbers of non-violent deaths were low, thus, estimation of trends with confidence was difficult. Not sampling two of the Governorates could have underestimated the total number of deaths, although these areas were generally known as low-violence Governorates. Finally, the sex of individuals who had died might not have been accurately reported by households. Female deaths could have been under-reported, or there might have been discomfort felt in reporting certain male deaths.

The striking similarity between the 2004 and 2006 estimates of pre-war mortality diminishes concerns about people's ability to recall deaths accurately over a 4-year period. Likewise, the similar patterns of mortality over time documented in our survey and by other sources corroborate our findings about the trends in mortality over time.1,5,32

In Iraq, as with other conflicts, civilians bear the consequences of warfare. In the Vietnam war, 3 million civilians died; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflict has been responsible for 3·8 million deaths; and an estimated 200 000 of a total population of 800 000 died in conflict in East Timor.33–35 Recent estimates are that 200 000 people have died in Darfur over the past 31 months.36 We estimate that almost 655 000 people—2·5% of the population in the study area—have died in Iraq. Although such death rates might be common in times of war, the combination of a long duration and tens of millions of people affected has made this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century, and should be of grave concern to everyone.

At the conclusion of our 2004 study8 we urged that an independent body assess the excess mortality that we saw in Iraq. This has not happened. We continue to believe that an independent international body to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian standards in conflict is urgently needed. With reliable data, those voices that speak out for civilians trapped in conflict might be able to lessen the tragic human cost of future wars.

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Great piece of writing by Uri Avnery - Israel military

2006-10-17T22:39:00.000+02:00

GREAT PIECE OF WRITING BY URI AVNERY - ISRAEL MILITARY

Uri Avnery
23.8.06

Good Morning, Elijahu!

A STORY has it that Oscar Wilde once attended the premiere of a
colleague's play and every few minutes raised his hat. When asked
about this odd behavior, he replied: "I am a courteous person. I raise
my hat when I meet an old acquaintance."

If I wore a hat, I would have to raise it every few minutes these days
when I view TV talk shows, listen to the radio or read the papers. I
keep meeting things I wrote years ago, and especially things I have
written since the beginning of this war.

For example: for decades I have warned again and again that the
occupation is corrupting our army. Now the papers are full of learned
articles by respected commentators, who have discovered - surprise!
surprise! - that the occupation has corrupted our army.

In such cases we say in Hebrew: "Good morning, Elijahu!" You have
woken up at long last.

If there is a touch of irony in my remark, I do apologize. After all,
I wrote in the hope that my words would convince the readers - and
especially people of the Israeli establishment - and that they would
pass them on. When this is happening now, I am quite happy about the
plagiarism.

But it is important to spell out how the occupation has "corrupted our
army". Otherwise it is just an empty slogan, and we shall learn
nothing from it.

A PERSONAL flashback: in the middle of the 1948 war I had an
unpleasant experience. After a day of heavy fighting, I was sleeping
soundly in a field near the Arab village Suafir (now Sapir). All
around me were sleeping the other soldiers of my company, Samson's
Foxes. Suddenly I was woken up by a tremendous explosion. An Egyptian
plane had dropped a bomb on us. Killed: none. Wounded: 1.

How's that? Very simple: we were all lying in our personal foxholes,
which we had dug, in spite of our fatigue, before going to sleep. It
was self-evident to us that when we arrived anywhere, the first thing
to do was dig in. Sometimes we changed locations three times a day,
and every time we dug foxholes. We knew that our lives depended on it.

Not anymore. In one of the most deadly incidents in the Second Lebanon
War, 12 members of a company were killed by a rocket near Kfar Giladi,
while sitting around in an open field. The soldiers later complained
that they had not been led to a shelter. Have today's soldiers never
heard of a foxhole? Have they been issued with personal shovels at
all?

Inside Lebanon, why did the soldiers congregate in the rooms of
houses, where they were hit by anti-tank missiles, instead of digging
foxholes?

It seems that the army has been weaned from this practice. No wonder:
an army that is dealing with "terrorists" in the West Bank and Gaza
does not need to take any special precautions. After all, no air force
drops bombs on them, no artillery shells them. They need no special
protection.

THAT IS true of all our armed forces on land, in the air and on the
sea. It is certainly a luxury to fight against an enemy who cannot
defend himself properly. But it is dangerous to get used to it.

The navy, for example. For years now it has been sailing along the
shores of Gaza and Lebanon, shelling at pleasure, arresting fishermen,
checking ships. It never dreamed that the enemy could shoot back.
Suddenly it happened - and on live television, too. Hizbullah hit it
with a land-to-sea missile.

There was no end to the surprise. It was almost considered as
Chutzpah. What, an enemy who shoots back? What next? And why did Army
Intelligence not warn us that they have such an unheard of thing, a
land-to-sea missile?

IN THE air as on the sea. For years now, Air Force pilots shoot and
bomb and kill at will. They are able to hit a moving car with great
precision (together with the passers-by, of course.) Their technical
level is excellent. But what? Nobody is shooting at them while they
are doing this.

The Royal Air Force boys during the blitz ("the few to whom so many
owe so much") had to confront the determined pilots of the Luftwaffe,
and most of them were killed. Later, the British and Americans who
bombed Germany ran the gauntlet of murderous flak.

But our pilots have no such problems. When they are in action over the
West Bank and Gaza, there are no enemy pilots, no surface-to-air
missiles, no flak. The sky belongs to them, and they can concentrate
on their real job: to destroy the infrastructure of life and act as
flying executioners, "eliminate" the objects of "targeted
liquidations", feeling only a "slight bang on the wing" while
releasing a one-ton bomb over a residential area.

Does that create a good air force? Does that prepare them for battle
with a real enemy? In Lebanon the pilots have not (yet) met
anti-aircraft fire. The only helicopter shot down was hit by anti-tank
fire while landing troops. But what about the next war everybody is
speaking about?

AND THE ground troops? Were they prepared for this war?

For 39 years now they have been compelled to carry our the jobs of a
colonial police force: to run after children throwing stones and
Molotov cocktails, to drag away women trying to protect their sons
from arrest, to capture people sleeping at home. To stand for hours at
the checkpoints and decide whether to let a pregnant woman reach the
hospital or send back a sick old man. At the worst, they have to
invade a casbah, to face untrained "terrorists" who have nothing but
Kalashnikovs to fight against the tanks and airplanes of their
occupiers, as well as courage and an unbelievable determination.

Suddenly these soldiers were sent to Lebanon to confront tough, well
trained and highly motivated guerilla fighters who are ready to die
while carrying out their mission. Fighters who have learned to appear
from an unexpected direction, to disappear into well-prepared bunkers,
to use advanced and effective weapons.

"We were not trained for this war!" the reserve soldiers now complain.
They are right. Where could they have been trained? In the alleys of
Jabalieh refugee camp? In the well-rehearsed scenes of embraces and
tears, while removing pampered settlers with "sensitivity and
determination"? Clearly it was easier to blockade Yasser Arafat and
his few untrained bodyguards in the Mukata'ah compound in Ramallah
than to conquer Bint Jbeil over and over again.

That applies even more to the tanks. It is easy to drive a tank along
the main street of Gaza or over a row of houses in a refugee camp,
facing only stone-throwing boys, when the opponent has no trained
fighters or half-way modern weapons. It's a hell of a difference
driving the same tank in a built-up area in Lebanon, when a trained
guerilla with an effective anti-tank weapon can lurk behind every
corner. That's a different story altogether. The more so as our army's
most modern tank is not immune from missiles.

The deepest rot appeared in the logistics system. It just did not
function. And why should it? There is no need for complex logistics to
bring water and food to the soldiers at the Kalandia checkpoint.

THE SIMPLE truth is that for decades now our army has not faced a
serious military force. The last time was 24 years ago, during the
First Lebanon War, when it fought against the Syrian army.

At the time we said in my magazine, Haolam Hazeh, that the war was a
complete military failure, a fact that was suppressed by all the
military commentators. In that war, too, our army did not reach its
targets on time according to the plan: it reached them either late or
not at all. In the Syrian sector the army did not reach its assigned
objective at all: the Beirut-Damascus road. In the Palestinian sector,
it reached that road much too late, and only after violating the
agreed cease-fire.

The last serious war of our army was the Yom Kippur war. After the
initial disgraceful setbacks, it did indeed attain an impressive
victory. But that was only six years into the occupation. Now, 33
years later, we see the full damage done by the cancer called
occupation, which by now has spread to all the organs of the military
body.

How to stop the cancer?

The military commentator Ze'ev Schiff has a patent medicine. Schiff
generally reflects the views of the army high command. (Perhaps over
the last 40 years, there may have been instances when he voiced
opinions that were not identical with those of the General Staff, but
if so, they have escaped me.) He proposes to shift the burden of
occupation from the army to the Border Police.

Sounds reasonable, but is completely unrealistic. How can Israel
create a second big force to maintain the occupation, on top of the
army, which already costs something approaching 12 billion dollars a
year?

But, thank goodness, there is another remedy. An amazingly simple one:
to free ourselves from the occupation once and for all. To get out of
the occupied territories in agreement and cooperation with the
Palestinians. To make peace with the Palestinian people, so they can
establish their independent state side by side with Israel.

And, while we are at it, to make peace with Syria and Lebanon, too.

So that the "Defense Army for Israel", as it is officially called in
Hebrew, can go back to its original purpose: to defend the recognized
international borders of the State of Israel.

Alice in Nuclear Blunderland

2006-10-17T22:31:00.000+02:00

ALICE IN NUCLEAR BLUNDERLAND

Vienna, Austria — Editor's note: In preparing this article about the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, we read the news stories from all of the most reputable sources, we read the reports from all of the best institutions, we read the statements from all of the governments and agencies, but nowhere could we find a reasonable, rational, or plausible explanation of what was happening. We decided the only answer was the absurd.

Ever since Alice had slipped down the Rabbit Hole, the news had been getting curiouser and curiouser. She found herself at a very large table where the March Hare, a dormouse, a hippopotamus, and the Mad Hatter were having tea.

The Hatter was telling a story about how George W. TweedleDum had just got back from a trip to India, where he was promising to give away shiny new nuclear technology. At the same time, TweedleDee had been getting very red-faced at the United Nations about some shiny new nuclear technology in Iran that he wanted taken away. He broke off his story to wave an empty teapot at Alice.

"Would you like less tea, my dear?"

"Don't you mean more tea?" asked Alice politely.

"No no no no. We don't have any "more tea" we only have "less tea." And it's very rude to ask for what we don't have. Now, would you like some more Peaceful Nuclear Technology and Less Nuclear Weapons to go with that?"

"Umm, yes please" said Alice, thinking this must be the correct answer and not wanting to upset the Hatter again.

"There you go again, asking for what we can't possibly give you!" cried the Hatter, springing to his feet.

"How about some safe, clean nuclear power instead?" offered the dormouse helpfully.

"That sounds quite nice, I suppose," said Alice with some hesitation.

"Wrong answer! No such thing!" the Hatter shouted with glee, politely adding "One lump or two?"

Alice was quite put out. "Isn't it rude to offer something you don't have?" asked Alice. "And even ruder to offer something that doesn't exist? What kind of a tea party is this?"

"Why this is an IAEA Board of Governors meeting, my dear, and we're having an NP Tea Party!" said the March Hare, glancing nervously at a very large watch which was chiming the hour by barking loudly.

"An NP Tea Party? What's that?"

"It's all very simple," said the Hatter as he handed out slices of cake and then went around smacking everyone's hand when they started eating it, "the NPT is a treaty in which the parties that have nuclear weapons agree to get rid of their nuclear weapons in exchange for the parties that don't have nuclear weapons promising not to get nuclear weapons. As part of the incentive for not getting nuclear weapons they're rewarded with the means to make nuclear weapons. Slice of Cake?"

Alice eyed the yellow cake suspiciously. She heard a distant voice shouting "Off with their heads!"

"Now, at the moment we're discussing the case of Iran, which has signed the treaty and promised not to build nuclear weapons and so has been rewarded with the means to make nuclear weapons. But there are some people at this party who think that they're actually using those means to make nuclear weapons as a means to make nuclear weapons."

"Which they've said they don't want..." said Alice.

"Oh yes, but as you of all people should know, my dear, saying what we mean isn't always the same as meaning what we say. Saying that they aren't making nuclear weapons is just what you'd expect them to do if they were making nuclear weapons. Proof enough."

The Hatter took a slice of cake and pushed it into the face of the Hippo, who already had his mouth full. "You shouldn't eat so much cake," he sputtered.

George W. TweedleDum suddenly appeared. "Personically, I'd like to see less nuclear weapons in the world. Which is why I'm building more."

"THAT's the spirit!" cried the Hatter.

"But I don't understand!" cried Alice. "If you can use nuclear power technology to make nuclear weapons, and you want to get rid of the nuclear weapons, shouldn't you stop handing out the nuclear power technology?"

George W. TweedleDum patted Alice on the head. "You are an absurd little creature, aren't you? Hatter, why don't you explanify the Treaty thing?"

"The TREATY thing, yes yes, mustn't forget that!" cried the Hatter as he absent-mindedly dipped the dormouse in his tea.

"Now you see on the one hand, Iran has signed the Non-treaty on Weapons Proliferation, and the Treaty on the Proliferation of Non-weapons Nuclear, and the Proliferation of Treaties on the Proliferation of Weapons, Non..."

"Which are all the same thing," said the dormouse, yawning.

"So if THEY try to get nuclear weapons, that's quite illegal and we must send them to the Queen of Hearts' Security Council for punishment."

"India, on the other hand," said the Hatter holding up a second hand and dropping the teapot on the dormouse's head, "has never signed the treaty, so their nuclear weapons are perfectly OK and they should be rewarded with more nuclear technology."

"Pakistan, on the third hand," and oddly the Hatter actually produce a third hand at this point, " has never signed the treaty, but we're not so sure about them, so we're NOT going to reward them with more nuclear technology."

George W. TweedleDum smiled broadly. "The lessonification here is never, never sign a treaty. That's my motto. Lot of bother. I promise to keep my nuclear weapons and everybody else has to get rid of theirs unless I say they can keep them. That's my kind of Treaty. I believe in maintaining high standards. I believe in maintaining high standards."

"You said that twice." said the Hatter.

"He has to say it twice," said the dormouse. "It's a double standard."

The Hatter now declared it was time for a vote. "Now, who thinks we should send Iran to the Queen of Hearts? ("Off with their heads! came the cry from the garden next door again...) Everyone looked at the Hippo. The hippo started to raise his foot, and everyone in the party started to raise their hands. Or paws. Then the hippo put his foot down, and everyone in the party did the same. Then George W. TweedleDum took a large hatpin and quietly stuck it into the rather large backside of the Hippo, who jumped into the air with his foot raised, and everyone in the party followed suit."

"There then, it's settled, off to the Queen of Hearts with them!" sang the Hatter.

"Is that what you call democracy?" asked Alice curiously.

"Well it looks like democracy, but in reality the Hippo decides, and the Hippo just does what TweedleDum tells him to do" said the Hatter.

"Oh. I see," said Alice. "I suppose then it's not really a democracy at all, is it?"

"Well it's just a very different kind of democracy, my dear. Some people call it a Hippocracy. Cake?"

The Case for Impeachment

2006-10-17T22:28:00.001+02:00

THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT

Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush

by Lewis H. Lapham
Harper's Magazine
February 27, 2006

A brief excerpt from the complete essay,
available in the March 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine.

A country is not only what it does-it is also what it puts up with, what it tolerates. -Kurt Tucholsky

On December 18 of last year, Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.) introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution inviting it to form "a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment." Although buttressed two days previously by the news of the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance of the American citizenry, the request attracted little or no attention in the press-nothing on television or in the major papers, some scattered applause from the left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on the websites flying the flags of the militant right. The nearly complete silence raised the question as to what it was the congressman had in mind, and to whom did he think he was speaking? In time of war few propositions would seem as futile as the attempt to impeach a president whose political party controls the Congress; as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee stationed on Capitol Hill for the last forty years, Representative Conyers presumably knew that to expect the Republican caucus in the House to take note of his invitation, much less arm it with the power of subpoena, was to expect a miracle of democratic transformation and rebirth not unlike the one looked for by President Bush under the prayer rugs in Baghdad. Unless the congressman intended some sort of symbolic gesture, self-serving and harmless, what did he hope to prove or to gain? He answered the question in early January, on the phone from Detroit during the congressional winter recess.

"To take away the excuse," he said, "that we didn't know." So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, "Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?" when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that "somehow it escaped our notice" that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.

A reason with which it was hard to argue but one that didn't account for the congressman's impatience. Why not wait for a showing of supportive public opinion, delay the motion to impeach until after next November's elections? Assuming that further investigation of the President's addiction to the uses of domestic espionage finds him nullifying the Fourth Amendment rights of a large number of his fellow Americans, the Democrats possibly could come up with enough votes, their own and a quorum of disenchanted Republicans, to send the man home to Texas. Conyers said:

"I don't think enough people know how much damage this administration can do to their civil liberties in a very short time. What would you have me do? Grumble and complain? Make cynical jokes? Throw up my hands and say that under the circumstances nothing can be done? At least I can muster the facts, establish a record, tell the story that ought to be front-page news."

Which turned out to be the purpose of his House Resolution 635-not a high-minded tilting at windmills but the production of a report, 182 pages, 1,022 footnotes, assembled by Conyers's staff during the six months prior to its presentation to Congress, that describes the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq as the perpetration of a crime against the American people. It is a fair description. Drawing on evidence furnished over the last four years by a sizable crowd of credible witnesses-government officials both extant and former, journalists, military officers, politicians, diplomats domestic and foreign-the authors of the report find a conspiracy to commit fraud, the administration talking out of all sides of its lying mouth, secretly planning a frivolous and unnecessary war while at the same time pretending in its public statements that nothing was further from the truth.[1] The result has proved tragic, but on reading through the report's corroborating testimony I sometimes could counter its inducements to mute rage with the thought that if the would-be lords of the flies weren't in the business of killing people, they would be seen as a troupe of off-Broadway comedians in a third-rate theater of the absurd.

Entitled "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War," the Conyers report examines the administration's chronic abuse of power from more angles than can be explored within the compass of a single essay. The nature of the administration's criminal DNA and modus operandi, however, shows up in a usefully robust specimen of its characteristic dishonesty.

* * *

That President George W. Bush comes to power with the intention of invading Iraq is a fact not open to dispute. Pleased with the image of himself as a military hero, and having spoken, more than once, about seeking revenge on Saddam Hussein for the tyrant's alleged attempt to "kill my Dad," he appoints to high office in his administration a cadre of warrior intellectuals, chief among them Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, known to be eager for the glories of imperial conquest.[2] At the first meeting of the new National Security Council on January 30, 2001, most of the people in the room discuss the possibility of preemptive blitzkrieg against Baghdad.[3] In March the Pentagon circulates a document entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts"; the supporting maps indicate the properties of interest to various European governments and American corporations. Six months later, early in the afternoon of September 11, the smoke still rising from the Pentagon's western facade, Secretary Rumsfeld tells his staff to fetch intelligence briefings (the "best info fast...go massive; sweep it all up; things related and not") that will justify an attack on Iraq. By chance the next day in the White House basement, Richard A. Clarke, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, encounters President Bush, who tells him to "see if Saddam did this." Nine days later, at a private dinner upstairs in the White House, the President informs his guest, the British prime minister, Tony Blair, that "when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."

By November 13, 2001, the Taliban have been rousted out of Kabul in Afghanistan, but our intelligence agencies have yet to discover proofs of Saddam Hussein's acquaintance with Al Qaeda.[4] President Bush isn't convinced. On November 21, at the end of a National Security Council meeting, he says to Secretary Rumsfeld, "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?...I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret."

The Conyers report doesn't return to the President's focus on Iraq until March 2002, when it finds him peering into the office of Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, to say, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." At a Senate Republican Policy lunch that same month on Capitol Hill, Vice President Dick Cheney informs the assembled company that it is no longer a question of if the United States will attack Iraq, it's only a question of when. The vice president doesn't bring up the question of why, the answer to which is a work in progress. By now the administration knows, or at least has reason to know, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, that Iraq doesn't possess weapons of mass destruction sufficiently ominous to warrant concern, that the regime destined to be changed poses no imminent threat, certainly not to the United States, probably not to any country defended by more than four batteries of light artillery. Such at least is the conclusion of the British intelligence agencies that can find no credible evidence to support the theory of Saddam's connection to Al Qaeda or international terrorism; "even the best survey of WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile and CW/BW weapons fronts..." A series of notes and memoranda passing back and forth between the British Cabinet Office in London and its correspondents in Washington during the spring and summer of 2002 address the problem of inventing a pretext for a war so fondly desired by the Bush Administration that Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's MI-6, finds the interested parties in Washington fixing "the intelligence and the facts...around the policy." The American enthusiasm for regime change, "undimmed" in the mind of Condoleezza Rice, presents complications.

Although Blair has told Bush, probably in the autumn of 2001, that Britain will join the American military putsch in Iraq, he needs "legal justification" for the maneuver-something noble and inspiring to say to Parliament and the British public. No justification "currently exists." Neither Britain nor the United States is being attacked by Iraq, which eliminates the excuse of self-defense; nor is the Iraqi government currently sponsoring a program of genocide. Which leaves as the only option the "wrong-footing" of Saddam. If under the auspices of the United Nations he can be presented with an ultimatum requiring him to show that Iraq possesses weapons that don't exist, his refusal to comply can be taken as proof that he does, in fact, possess such weapons.[5]

Over the next few months, while the British government continues to look for ways to "wrong-foot" Saddam and suborn the U.N., various operatives loyal to Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld bend to the task of fixing the facts, distributing alms to dubious Iraqi informants in return for map coordinates of Saddam's monstrous weapons, proofs of stored poisons, of mobile chemical laboratories, of unmanned vehicles capable of bringing missiles to Jerusalem.[6]

By early August the Bush Administration has sufficient confidence in its doomsday story to sell it to the American public. Instructed to come up with awesome text and shocking images, the White House Iraq Group hits upon the phrase "mushroom cloud" and prepares a White Paper describing the "grave and gathering danger" posed by Iraq's nuclear arsenal.[7] The objective is three-fold-to magnify the fear of Saddam Hussein, to present President Bush as the Christian savior of the American people, a man of conscience who never in life would lead the country into an unjust war, and to provide a platform of star-spangled patriotism for Republican candidates in the November congressional elections.[8]

* * *

The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years-misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as "enemy combatants," etc.-but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal-known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?

* * *

The above is a brief excerpt from the complete essay, available in the March 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine.

Notes
1. The report borrows from hundreds of open sources that have become a matter of public record-newspaper accounts, television broadcasts (Frontline, Meet the Press, Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, etc.), magazine articles (in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books), sworn testimony in both the Senate and House of Representatives, books written by, among others, Bob Woodward, George Packer, Richard A. Clarke, James Mann, Mark Danner, Seymour Hersh, David Corn, James Bamford, Hans Blix, James Risen, Ron Suskind, Joseph Wilson. As the congressman had said, "Everything in plain sight; it isn't as if we don't know." [Back]

2. In January of 1998 the neoconservative Washington think tank The Project for the New American Century (which counts among its founding members Dick Cheney) sent a letter to Bill Clinton demanding "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" with a strong-minded "willingness to undertake military action." Together with Rumsfeld, six of the other seventeen signatories became members of the Bush's first administration-Elliott Abrams (now George W. Bush's deputy national security advisor), Richard Armitage (deputy secretary of state from 2001 to 2005), John Bolton (now U.S. ambassador to the U.N.), Richard Perle (chairman of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003), Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense from 2001 to 2005), Robert Zoellick (now deputy secretary of state). President Clinton responded to the request by signing the Iraq Liberation Act, for which Congress appropriated $97 million for various clandestine operations inside the borders of Iraq. Two years later, in September 2000, The Project for the New American Century issued a document noting that the "unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification" for the presence of the substantial American force in the Persian Gulf. [Back]

3. In a subsequent interview on 60 Minutes, Paul O'Neill, present in the meeting as the newly appointed secretary of the treasury, remembered being surprised by the degree of certainty: "From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.... It was all about finding a way to do it." [Back]

4. As early as September 20, Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, drafted a memo suggesting that in retaliation for the September 11 attacks the United States should consider hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, or perhaps deliberately selecting a non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq. [Back]

5. Abstracts of the notes and memoranda, known collectively as "The Downing Street Minutes," were published in the Sunday Times (London) in May 2005; their authenticity was undisputed by the British government. [Back]

6. The work didn't go unnoticed by people in the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department accustomed to making distinctions between a well-dressed rumor and a naked lie. In the spring of 2004, talking to a reporter from Vanity Fair, Greg Thielmann, the State Department officer responsible for assessing the threats of nuclear proliferation, said, "The American public was seriously misled. The Administration twisted, distorted and simplified intelligence in a way that led Americans to seriously misunderstand the nature of the Iraq threat. I'm not sure I can think of a worse act against the people in a democracy than a President distorting critical classified information." [Back]

7. The Group counted among its copywriters Karl Rove, senior political strategist, Andrew Card, White House chief of staff, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. [Back]

8. Card later told the New York Times that "from a marketing point of view...you don't introduce new products in August." [Back]

This is The Case for Impeachment by Lewis H. Lapham, published Monday, February 27, 2006. It is part of Features, which is part of Harpers.org.
Written By
Lapham, Lewis H.

http://harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html

Iran and the Bomb

2006-10-17T22:27:00.000+02:00

IRAN AND THE BOMB

By Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 179, Feb. 15, 2006
Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University

Much of the discussion about Iran's nuclear program is quite simply hysterical. Witness the statement of Sen. John McCain just this month: "There's only one thing worse than military action and that's a nuclear-armed Iran." One is tempted to respond with Shakespeare's title: "Much ado about nothing." Except that there's an awful lot of "ado" and some people in high places seem to be serious about engaging in military action to stop Iran from securing nuclear weapons. So we have to ask why is this so important, and so important to whom?

First of all, why should we consider it to be a catastrophe if tomorrow Iran has nuclear weapons? There are today nine countries known to possess nuclear weapons - the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. What would change if Iran became the tenth? Who would be menaced by Iran? Which country might they bomb? At the present time, there is no indication of any kind that Iran is or intends to be militarily aggressive. To be sure, the current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made very hostile statements about Israel. But does anyone think he intends to bomb Israel, or that Iran has the military capacity to do so? Rhetoric and intentions are two different things.

But if Iran doesn't intend to use the bomb, why would Iran want to have it? There are some obvious reasons. Of the nine countries that have the bomb, all but one have bases close enough to use it against Iran. The Iranian government would have to be very naive not to worry about this. Furthermore, they can easily deduce from U.S. policy of the last five years that the U.S. invaded Iraq but not North Korea, and that one of the greatest differences between the two was that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons and that North Korea did.

A second obvious reason is Iranian nationalism. We must remember that Iranian aspirations to be a nuclear power did not start with the current president. They go all the way back before the Iranian revolution to the days of the Shah of Iran. Obviously, today a "middle" power of the size of Iran will enhance its geopolitical strength if it's a member of the nuclear club. Iran has its national interests, as all other states do, and it clearly wishes to play a central role in its region.

But does this in itself menace the peace of the world or of the region? When the Soviet Union had its first nuclear explosion in 1949, the lamentations of the Western world were very loud. But it is clear in retrospect that the single factor which most contributed to the non-occurrence of an American-Soviet war from 1949 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was the fact that both powers had nuclear weapons. It was the fear of mutual destruction that guaranteed that neither would use nuclear weapons, despite all the acute tensions from the Berlin blockade to the Cuban so-called missile crisis to the war in Afghanistan. The fact that both India and Pakistan have the bomb has been a very strong constraint on their conflict over Kashmir.

Why would not the balance of terror operate equally well in the Middle East? Why would not the possession by Iran of nuclear weapons be an element in pacifying the Middle East rather than the reverse? The only answer offered is that the Iranian government is not sufficiently "rational" to abstain from using the bomb. But this is clearly nonsense - racist nonsense, one should add. The present Iranian regime is at least as politically sophisticated as the Bush regime, and is a lot less vocally militarist.

Then, why is everyone making so much fuss? Henry Kissinger explained it over a year ago and Thomas Friedman has recently repeated it in The New York Times. It is quite clear that, once Iran has nuclear weapons, the dike will have been breached, and a good 10-15 other countries will work very fast to acquire such weapons. There are some obvious candidates: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq (yes, Iraq), South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, and many European countries. In 2015, there may be twenty-five nuclear powers.

Is this dangerous? Of course, it is, in the sense that there are always crazy individuals and groups who might get access to the buttons that need to be pushed. But these crazy people or groups exist in the present nine nuclear countries and I personally do not believe there are more of them in the next fifteen. Nuclear disarmament is an objective that is urgent, but not nuclear disarmament of just part of the world - nuclear disarmament of everyone.

The reason that the United States in particular is so agitated about Iran's potential nuclear armament is that the spread of nuclear weapons to so-called middle countries clearly reduces the military strength of the United States. But that doesn't mean that it threatens the peace of the world. Should we then worry about an invasion of Iran by the United States or an Israeli attack? Not really, because the U.S. does not now have the military strength to engage in such an attack, because the Iraqi regime would not support it, and because Israel can't do it alone. So, much ado about nothing.

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global.]

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