How many innocent people must die before Iraq is saved? How many must be sacrificed on the altar of 9/11? How long does the carnage need to go on? According to a public poll recently conducted by the London-based Opinion Research Business (ORB), one out of five Iraqi families lost at least one member between March 2003 and August 2007. Some have lost two or more. A spokesman for ORB said that 1,033,000 Iraqis were killed between March 2003 and August 2007. The heaviest death toll was in Baghdad, where 40 per cent of the population reported the death of one family member. News agencies reporting on the ORB finding attributed the bloodshed to "violence" without blaming any particular side for the killings. Arab newspapers, many of which are financed or influenced by foreign quarters, did the same. Those claiming that the numbers are much lower often challenge these figures. But the fact remains that loss of life in Iraq is massive and the victims are more than statistics. Iraq is in the throes of a full-fledged humanitarian catastrophe, all the more egregious in being created on the rump of greed and power; a victim of a shameless and unethical onslaught, and no one is taking responsibility for its suffering. When the US commander who led the war on Iraq was asked about the death toll among innocent civilians, he said that he wasn't interested in the numbers and had other things on his mind. And when a US university working closely with a respected British medical journal, The Lancet, published a report in the early months of the occupation saying that 100,000 Iraqis were killed, well-paid propagandists countered that the number was exaggerated. Still, when the figures topped 655,000 and were reported in The Lancet three years into the occupation, the same propagandists discounted the reports. Now the figure has topped one million. What is even more shocking than the figures is the relentless propaganda aimed at distracting attention from the magnitude of bloodshed in Iraq. Some propagandists now claim that the death toll is less than 151,000, adding that anyone citing higher figures must be doing so for political purposes. It is as if a lower figure could somehow diminish the horror the Iraqis have been going through. Are we to understand that anything less than 151,000 deaths based on an illegal war of aggression is acceptable? What we mustn't forget is that the Iraqis endured decades of international embargo, worldwide demonising, and multi-million dollar political intrigue sponsored by the same forces now occupying the country. Over two million Iraqis are said to have lost their lives during the sanctions period. Some may recall what then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said when asked about the price the Iraqi children were paying for the US-imposed blockade. Some may recall the wide range of internationally banned weapons that were tested on the Iraqi people since the early 1990s. Iraqis have faced destructive forces unprecedented in modern history and for longer than any other people. The reason is that Iraq is paramount on the imperialist wish list of countries to seize and dispossess of their wealth. And the death toll is only one aspect of the problem. What about those who were forced out of their homes and their jobs -- 4.7 million to date? How about the rampant corruption, the squandering of resources, and the dismembering of the country sponsored and encouraged by the US occupation and its local mercenary forces? A million or so have died so far in a war-torn, bleeding, and occupied Iraq. International organisations and the media may bicker over figures, but the reality of death and lawlessness in Iraq is undeniable. So is the absence of requisite international courage and conscience to end this travesty and hold its architects responsible before law and the history of human civilisation.
