Yet another piece of news which exposes the great humanitarian traits of the occupiers. So long as they get the oil, do they care?
Aah the Bush apologists will now tell us that if Saddam was still in power more than 20,000 would have been wounded during this period. What logic?
Iraq’s 20,000 wounded civilians ignored](Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands.)
LONDON (Reuters) - Around 20,000 civilians were wounded in the Iraq war and the U.S.-British occupiers are ignoring their suffering, a research group says in what it terms the first study of the conflict’s casualty toll.
“The maimed civilians of Iraq have been brushed under the carpet,” the Iraq Body Count (IBC) said on Thursday.
The Anglo-American group of academics and peace activists chided U.S. and British postwar administrators for failing to set up programmes for the wounded or pay them compensation.
“A sizeable if as yet unknown proportion of Iraqi families will contain a relative whose life was ended or put on hold by the U.S. or British forces,” it said in a report seen by Reuters prior to publication on its website, www.iraqbodycount.net.
“Even if only in self-interest, the U.S. and UK administrations should be putting the needs of the injured at the very heart of its strategy to ‘win hearts and minds’.”
The report, titled “Adding Indifference to Injury”, said the IBC had calculated civilian casualties known so far as between a minimum of 16,439 and maximum 19,733. **(No doubt result of precision bombing.) **
Incomplete information about casualties meant that the maximum figure was likely to be a closer approximation to the real total and might itself be an under-estimate, it said.
The IBC’s figures were based on media reports and counting projects from independent investigators up to July 6.
The group has also for months been publishing a running total of estimated civilian deaths from the Iraq war, with its latest calculation a minimum of 6,086 and a maximum of 7,797. (No doubt it was the Iraqi missles falling back to ground which accounted for 99.9% of them, after all the precison led bombing by the invaders can’t be responsible for such savagery.)
The IBC said the U.S. and British military’s reluctance to calculate the number of civilian wounded was inexcusable.
“There is indeed a possibility that not every death can be accounted for,” it said. “Injuries are another matter. The injured are alive, perhaps receiving treatment, and the cause, nature and extent of their injuries will appear in medical, official, and informal records.”
The need for investigation and assessment “is particularly urgent, for many of the injured may still be suffering and their condition may be improved if we act promptly,” it added.
The United States and Britain have repeatedly said their forces tried to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but have declined to give any estimates.
A spokesman for Britain’s Ministry of Defence said it was impossible to say whether the IBC estimate was accurate.
“The conflict was aimed at minimising civilian casualties,” he said. “But it’s very difficult to assess figures.”
The spokesman said U.S. and British efforts to bring about an Iraqi administration and resurrect infrastructure, including medical facilities, would benefit the wounded. Compensation claims should be taken up with the interim authority, he added.
The occupiers’ only attention to wounded civilians has been in high-profile cases like Ali Ismaeel Abbas, the 12-year-old boy airlifted out for medical treatment after losing both arms, or limited care from some units after battles, the IBC said.
That has left the wounded relying on vandalised and depleted Iraqi hospitals and “a few charities and aid agencies, which have struggled against U.S. obstruction to gain a foothold for their work with the sick and injured,” the report said.
Twenty thousand injury compensation claims at $10,000 (6,200 pounds) each would cost the occupiers $200 million – less than the United States spends every two days on the occupation, the group said.
“What excuse can the U.S. possibly have for declining this opportunity to do some good for those who desperately need it (and for whose hurt it is responsible), and in the process, win back some of that “goodwill” it has lost in Iraq and much of the world?”
