A Dossier of Civilian Casualties in Iraq

New analysis of civilian casualties in Iraq: Report unveils comprehensive details

"A Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq, 2003-2005" is the first detailed account of all non-combatants reported killed or wounded during the first two years of the continuing conflict. The report, published by Iraq Body Count in association with Oxford Research Group, is based on comprehensive analysis of over 10,000 media reports published between March 2003 and March 2005.
Findings include:
Who was killed?

* 24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years.
* Women and children accounted for almost 20% of all civilian deaths.
* Baghdad alone recorded almost half of all deaths.

When did they die?

* 30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003.
* Post-invasion, the number of civilians killed was almost twice as high in year two (11,351) as in year one (6,215).

Who did the killing?

* US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
* Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims.
* Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths.
* Killings by anti-occupation forces, crime and unknown agents have shown a steady rise over the entire period.

What was the most lethal weaponry?

* Over half (53%) of all civilian deaths involved explosive devices.
* Air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths.
* Children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance (including cluster bomblets).

How many were injured?

* At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded.
* The invasion phase caused 41% of all reported injuries.
* Explosive weaponry caused a higher ratio of injuries to deaths than small arms.
* The highest wounded-to-death ratio incidents occurred during the invasion phase.

Who provided the information?

* Mortuary officials and medics were the most frequently cited witnesses.
* Three press agencies provided over one third of the reports used.
* Iraqi journalists are increasingly central to the reporting work.

Speaking today at the launch of the report in London, Professor John Sloboda, FBA, one of the report's authors said: "The ever-mounting Iraqi death toll is the forgotten cost of the decision to go to war in Iraq. On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003. Our data show that no sector of Iraqi society has escaped. We sincerely hope that this research will help to inform decision-makers around the world about the real needs of the Iraqi people as they struggle to rebuild their country. It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two and half years on, neither the US nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed."

Click to download the dossier (pdf)

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There's no place like home for the new anti-terrorism laws

By Adele Horin

THE Federal Government's proposed anti-terrorism laws could be a godsend in disguise for Australian families. I am thinking of families who have lost authority over their fractious teenagers and are looking for a way to keep them home.

When the kids get too old to be sent to the naughty corner, ignore your protestations about the hours and the company they keep and the unsavoury internet sites they favour, don't despair. I think I can see a way under the proposed anti-terrorism laws for powerless parents to enlist the help of the Australian Federal Police and ASIO.

The anti-terrorism laws may do little to prevent a hothead blowing up Town Hall station. But they offer much scope in subduing insubordinate teens who want to go clubbing at midnight instead of studying for their exams.

Here's what I have in mind, having read a draft of the proposed laws thoughtfully posted on the website of Jon Stanhope, the ACT Chief Minister.

The best bet lies in the proposed control orders, which sound like every parent's dream. Under these orders a person who has committed no crime can have severe restrictions placed on their daily lives for a year - or for those aged 16 to 18, for three months.

You have to persuade the Federal Police your child may be thinking of committing a terrorist act. No worries, considering you can doubtless attest to his unsavoury friends, his late-night assignations and his violent anti-government rhetoric.

The police can take away most of his rights and freedoms without having to charge him with a crime. And nor must they tell him the grounds for their actions (or that you dobbed him in).

A judge or magistrate must agree that a control order should be imposed, but that should be easy. After all, under the proposed laws your child has no right to put his case or appear in court or argue that his unsavoury associates are ravers not radicals and that he thinks suicide bombers are uncool.

No, the court will never get to hear the lad's side. On the say-so of the Federal Police, the court is sure to approve a control order. How could judges insist on a high level of proof if their dillying could result in the Harbour Bridge being blown asunder?

And under the control order there is no end of restrictions that can be placed on your wayward teen - a veritable cornucopia of punishments.

The court can order him never to leave the house, but that might be a strain on the family. It might be better if the lad is ordered to wear an electronic tag that tracks his every movement.

He can be ordered not to use the phone and never to associate with his scruffy friends again - or to frequent those iniquitous binge-drinking dens. And he can be forbidden to touch the internet. There's a long list of specific restrictions laid out in the proposed law that will ensure your child's life is controlled by a higher authority.

The anti-terrorism laws will bring to the home the discipline so sadly lacking before. Your son may have flouted your pathetic curfews and house rules, but now if he strays, makes a forbidden phone call or clicks into the web, it's off to jail for five years, just like that.

Most people who care about civil liberties say these anti-terrorism laws go too far in robbing us of the freedoms and legal protections that distinguish democracies from dictatorships. Control orders are not right, they say. It is wrong that a person should live in limbo for 12 months, neither a criminal nor a free man, assumed guilty yet charged with no crime, and with limited rights to get the order revoked.

The introduction of judicial review is a smokescreen by the Government, these critics say, to give legitimacy to Big Brother powers. In effect, no judge woken in the middle of the night, and presented with one side of the argument, will demur.

If the police nab the wrong Ahmed or mistake the rantings of a mentally ill person for terrorist diatribe, the innocent will suffer, say the civil libertarians. And use of these techniques on the alienated, the angry and the critics of Government policy will inflame the very hostilities anti-terrorism laws are intended to douse.

But I say these laws have potential for desperate parents whose lives are being ruined by ungrateful brats. And to those folk who believe only terrorists have to fear the anti-terrorism laws, I say you have failed to grasp their latent promise in curbing all manner of trouble-makers.

But a word of warning to parents: if kids get smart, they will realise they can use the new laws to their own ends. For them, the preventive detention provisions offer much promise.

Under these provisions ASIO can detain a terrorism suspect for 14 days - once the states' legislation is passed - without charge. Here's the catch: the detainee is prevented by law from telling his family, or anyone else, why he has suddenly disappeared. He can only report to one family member that he is "safe".

And once the kids learn of this, I can imagine the phone calls from Byron Bay and Nimbin: "Dad, I'm safe; don't worry. But it's illegal to tell you any more."

A police state for one and all.

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No dictator in history has ever wielded such a powerful tool as a TV set

Wednesday, Oct 19, 2005
By DON ZEIGLER

In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961, Newton Minnow referred to television as “a vast wasteland”. In the 40-plus years since Minnow's speech, television programming has become even more crass, stupid, and propagandistic; so bad that only an idiot would watch it. Yet everybody does, even non-idiots.

Today it's nearly impossible to not watch television. It's everywhere - the home, bars and nightclubs, even restaurants. It pervades our lives; we can't imagine ourselves without it. People will watch it simply for the sake of watching. They may not even like the program that's on but their eyes are attracted to the movement and their ears to the sound.

The next time you're in a restaurant or bar that has television, look at the people around you. Their eyes instinctively seek out the flickering screen. Even if the sound is turned completely off, they still watch. Browse an electronics store and observe how many people are drawn to the televisions on display.

In George Orwell's novel �”, a totalitarian government utilizes devices called telescreens to both dispense propaganda and misinformation to the citizenry and to spy on them. They hang on the wall of every home and every business. It amazes me how Orwell, with a novel released in 1949, conceived a contraption that so closely resembles modern television.

It's easy to dismiss television as the entertainment of fools, concocted and sponsored by even bigger fools. However, we seriously underestimate the power of the big box. I've come to realize that modern television, although not quite at the technological level envisioned by Orwell, is indeed a force that profoundly influences those who watch it. No dictator in history has ever wielded such a powerful tool with which to control society.

It's too easy to believe that something so stupid could not possibly be dangerous, but if this is your opinion, you're wrong. Advertising and television have been cozy bedfellows for decades, and television broadcasts are laden with commercials created by people who have had generations in which to study their audience, and thus know how to manipulate them.

Both television programs and the advertisements that support them have been busily remolding our values and beliefs. It hasn't been an overnight process. It's taken many years, but we now have a shadow government - the TV industry - that shapes our very lives.

We are being fed instructions 24/7/365 and don't even realize it. To be happy we must possess the New and Improved. To be successful we must meet a certain standard of physical appearance.

We also dispense our television programming throughout the world via satellite. Countries all over the globe lament the Americanization of their societies, and with good reason. Cultures hundreds or thousands of years older than our own are being pervaded with the culture of MTV, HBO and the Playboy Channel. As if other countries needed another reason to dislike us.

Quality in television is an issue that has been debated since the dawn of commercial programming. Unfortunately, there are no concrete solutions. Boycotts have been tried and generally fail. It also seems that people are less easily offended these days, thanks to the coarsening of our society by the very medium in question.

People can complain to either the station or the Federal Communications commission if they're offended by a broadcast. But how often does this happen in this day and age? Even the infamous Super Bowl breast-baring incident involving Janet Jackson didn't generate a multitude of complaints from people who actually witnessed the “wardrobe malfunction”.

The only solution I can offer is to simply turn the big box off. I know several people who have kicked television out of their house completely and don't even own a set anymore. We haven't reached this point yet in our own house, but we are very selective in what we choose to view. To be honest, I could not give you the name of any new shows debuting this fall. Our viewing is mostly confined to some sporting events, and certain shows on Discovery, PBS and TLC.

I've also rediscovered the joy of books. An avid reader in my youth, I've once again begun reading a book or two a week. It's been great to revisit novels I read 20 or more years ago, and then dive into something previously unread.

And best of all, books are commercial-free.

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Revealed: police's new supergun will blast rioters off their feet

New generation of microwave and laser weapons set to transform crowd control techniques

By Severin Carrell
Published: 09 October 2005

British defence scientists are working on a new generation of weapons which includes microwaves, lasers and chemical guns that could be used to quell riots, The Independent on Sunday has found.

One highly classified project is to develop a "vortex gun", for use in riots, which fires a powerful, doughnut-shaped pulse of air at supersonic speed. Experts say the weapon could fire riot-control gas or other chemicals to disperse mobs or disable enemy troops.

Scientific Applications & Research Associates, a US firm that has made such a gun, said it could fire shock waves that hit people "with enough force to knock them off balance. [It] feels like having a bucket of cold water thrown on to your chest". The research involves putting high-powered lasers and micro- wave weapons on cruise missiles and planes to "kill" an enemy's own weapons, although these new arms could be banned under international treaties.

A major British defence firm, Qinetiq, formed when the Government privatised its military testing agency, is understood to be investigating weapons that use lasers to "dazzle" the enemy, a technique the US military is now said to be using in Iraq.

British defence laboratories are also understood to have tested crowd-control foams including a much thicker version of the foam used to fight aircraft fires and another "sticky" foam that immobilises people caught in it.

These weapons are part of a taxpayer-funded, fast-expanding, secret programme of research by military laboratories and private defence firms into so-called non-lethal weapons.

The drive to find such weaponry sprang from attempts to replace the baton rounds, known as plastic bullets, which were heavily criticised in Chris Patten's report into policing in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s. Police now have a far wider range of "non-lethal weapons", including safer baton rounds, CS gas, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and, in Northern Ireland, water cannon.

Modern technologies have also made it much easier to create new arms, and Britain has a joint programme to develop military non-lethal weapons with the US, which is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into research.

The high-powered microwave weapon is part of a British programme code-named Virus, run by a little-known department of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) called the Deep Target Attack directorate. The weapon fires a powerful pulse of microwaves to completely or temporarily knock out equipment such as computers, radar or guidance systems.

The lasers, which could be fitted on aircraft or unmanned aircraft called drones, would be aimed at an enemy's electronic sensors and disable radar-guided anti-aircraft batteries.

A report by Canada's defence research agency, released by the Sunshine Project, a US-based group that investigates military research, says the UK is "one of the main players" in the world in investigating weapons using high-powered micro-waves, along with the US, France and Russia.

This revelation surprised Neil Davison, head of a research programme into non-lethal weapons at Bradford University. He said the MoD had a track record of secrecy over its research programme.

"We know the British armed forces have an active programme to find new non-lethal weapons and the UK is working closely with the United States, but the details of that collaborative arrangement are not openly available," he said.

Many of these techniques could be highly controversial, particularly the use of lasers to temporarily blind an opponent. Britain was forced to abandon high-powered lasers to dazzle jet pilots, a technique allegedly used during the Falklands War, because it contravened new global rules outlawing devices designed to permanently disable combatants or cause someone to crash a plane.

Mark Fulop, head of the bio-medical sciences department at the MoD's main defence research agency, confirmed that there is an extensive programme to find new non-lethal weapons. That included the vortex gun, which tests showed could be effective fired up to 48m from a target. "But it is a long way from being practical," he said. "We're watching to see what others are doing."

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Morocco/Spain: Migrants deported to die in the desert

On 5 October 2005, the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía and the Chabaka network of northern Morocco issued a call to condemn the serious violation of human rights that are being suffered by sub-Saharan migrants, most notably the deportation of hundreds of people to the Sahara desert which has resulted in between 12 and 16 deaths already. The statement also describes the situation of migrants in northern Morocco who are hiding in the depths of woods and surounded by the army as an emergency. The two organisations called on the UNHCR, the Red Cross and the European Parliament to intervene immediately, as well as criticising the fact that a repatriation agreement between Spain and Morocco dating back to 1992 for the return of non-nationals who have used Morocco as a transit country has been put into practice in these circumstances. They also lament the fact that the € 40m in funding that have been made available by the EU, will "certainly… not be used to relieve the humanitarian crisis that thousands of sub-Saharan Africans in Morocco are experiencing".

APDHA and Chabaka press statement, 5.10.2005; available at: http://www.apdha.org

"GRAVES VIOLACIONES DE DERECHOS HUMANOS EN MARRUECOS"

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