Iraq: 63 % of the casualties were civilians

[Andres]

I'm surprised there still isn't a thread about the latest wikileaks stunt.

Linky.

• While the U.S. has maintained that it didn't have an official death toll and the Bush administration downplayed the number of civilian deaths, the documents showed military brass kept a secret tally that placed the number of casualties between 109,000 and 285,000.

The documents also estimated that 63% of those killed were civilians.

• U.S. forces turned a blind eye to Iraqi rights violations that made the abuse of prisoners by G.I.s at Abu Ghraib pale by comparison.

Iraqi prisoners were shackled, blindfolded and hung by their wrists or ankles by other Iraqis. They also were subjected to whipping, punching, kicking and electrical shocks.

• Military brass covered up or ignored the slaughter of Iraqi civilians by government death squads.

• Iran armed and trained Shiite squads to kill senior Iraqi politicians and undermine U.S. and British military operations.

[Vladimir]

I really don't think anyone's surprised. Who do you pin the blame on? Coalition forces, Iran, or the local Iraqi's?

[Fragony]

It's a sickening amount of loss of life when true

[Furunculus]

an iraq veterans take on the wikileaks release:

http://tachesdhuile.blogspot.com/201...eaks-iraq.html

[Odin]

I really don't think anyone's surprised. Who do you pin the blame on? Coalition forces, Iran, or the local Iraqi's?

George Bush and his administration is who you pin the blame on. Most of them should be in jail and facing the death penalty for the travesty that was and is the iraq war. Those civilians died needlessly, unless the WMD turn up on the way out then this war had no justification at all.

Removing dictators in foreign countries should not be the mandate of the U.S. the iraqi civilian death toll is about all the evidence one needs.

[Vladimir]

George Bush and his administration is who you pin the blame on. Most of them should be in jail and facing the death penalty for the travesty that was and is the iraq war. Those civilians died needlessly, unless the WMD turn up on the way out then this war had no justification at all.

Removing dictators in foreign countries should not be the mandate of the U.S. the iraqi civilian death toll is about all the evidence one needs.

Bush lied people died!

[tibilicus]

Iraq is not an argument against liberal interventionism. It's an argument about doing liberal interventionism right. The whole war was a calamity from the beginning and it's a disgrace that so many died due to continuous errors committed by the USA.

[Furunculus]

Iraq is not an argument against liberal interventionism. It's an argument about doing liberal interventionism right. The whole war was a calamity from the beginning and it's a disgrace that so many died due to continuous errors committed by the USA.

and the failure of britain to exercise its position in the command authority.

we deploy 15% of the force to achieve second in command, and then fail to make good use of it*.


* most notably by having Clare Short declaring that her international aid department would have nothing to do with invading iraq.

[gaelic cowboy]

and the failure of britain to exercise its position in the command authority.

we deploy 15% of the force to achieve second in command, and then fail to make good use of it*.


* most notably by having Clare Short declaring that her international aid department would have nothing to do with invading iraq.

The military position in Iraq was ruined way before any development aid was needed

BBC News: UK Basra base exit 'not a defeat'

The Yanks basically had to go in and clean up the mess UK left behind it.

[PanzerJaeger]

Why hasn't Julian Assange been killed and Wikileaks destroyed? The intelligence agencies of the Cold War would never have let this happen.

[gaelic cowboy]

Well seeing as Castro is still alive I wouldnt put much stock in them fellas either.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Why hasn't Julian Assange been killed and Wikileaks destroyed? The intelligence agencies of the Cold War would never have let this happen.

A little too much emphasis on spy novels in your personal reading list? All of the players in Cold War intelligence were far more circumspect and far less bloody-minded then you are suggesting. The Cold War had lots of "unofficial" rules and gentlepersons' agreements.

A lot of the posters above, PJ, are feeling vindicated in their view that the Iraq conflict was wrong. To be fair to them, they have a few good points.

1. Bush's administration rounded up on intelligence suggesting a continuing WMD program. Their sources were never better than a 3 on the 5 scale because -- howevermuch the informants were "inside" there was little to corroborate their stories. If most of your information is coming from sources that have an axe to grind or incentive to appear important while seeking asylum, you need to be more jaundiced in your reliance on such material. The Bush administration was not.

2. Pentagon suggestions that toppling Saddam would be a piece of cake but that quieting Iraq would be a furr-ball were ignored or marginalized in the rush to topple Saddam. We used the appropriate amount of force to flatten the Bathist regime, but were negligently unprepared for dealing with a post-Bathist Iraq. Informed sources and a number of our own analysts warned of the difficulties here, but the warnings fell on deaf ears. How much of Iraq's pains were begat when we failed to sit on the whole place with garrisons capable of real suppression. We broke it, we bought it -- that's the way we always do things. It was negligent not to be ready. Good gravy, it took us months to set up our puppet transtion government -- a facet of the effort that should have been in place WEEKS before we initiated combat.

3. We have steadfastly failed to acknowledge that a small, but highly motivated minority of muslims will never accept occupation of traditionally muslim lands by any power that is not muslim. The best we can hope for is for this minority to become marginalized over time. However, by not being ready for this aspect of the "PR" portion of the war on terror, we have undercut far too many of the gains we have made in other areas.

4. We should have probably kept British ground troops out of Iraq entirely. The UK evinced quite a lot of support for the effort in Afghanistan but little for Iraq. We should have kept the Brits in the background in our "coalition of the willing" and let them take the lead in Afghanistan (once we'd decided to go after Iraq and downplay the OBL hunt. This shift would have kept public support far stronger -- and they were and are our staunchest allies.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I think point (1) can be more accurately reflected as:

Bush administration (and other governments of the allies at the time) had essentially decided upon a war with Iraq and were going to get one: due process, or even a casus belli be damned. From that it should be apparent why opponents of the war consider the war so very very wrong: no need to bring in the quagmire they caused in points 2 thru 4.

EDIT: Or in one laden word that this comes so close to: treason.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Bush didn't kill anyone people. The insurgents did.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Bush didn't kill anyone people. The insurgents did.

Poor Bush what did he ever do to deserve this? Outrageous! I mean it's about the same as suggesting that Osama Bin Laden might have had anything to do with 9/11, or that Al-Zarqawi might bear any responsibility for dead Iraqi civillians! Next thing you know people might actually be held responsible for the consequences of their actions!

[Megas Methuselah]

Next thing you know people might actually be held responsible for the consequences of their actions!

Aaaah, child support!!! *runs away*

[Husar]

Aaaah, child support!!! *runs away*

That state actually profits from more children in the long run, that's why it creates an incentive to get more.

To get back to the actual topic, Bush lied, and the American soldiers opened fire, and if they're not a bunch of overrated sissies they actually killed Iraqis.
I was actually a bit of a supporter of the war until it became painfully obvious that the whole WMD thing was a big lie, and I don't like being lied to, at all.
That there are insurgents is no big surprise when you start a war over a big lie and invade a country that wasn't very fond of you to begin with and where you previously betrayed some people.

[Devastatin Dave]

I was actually a bit of a supporter of the war until it became painfully obvious that the whole WMD thing was a big lie

Not according to wikilinks
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/interna...7pDf7AZ3RO9qnM

[Hax]

Like killing a family, finding a bottle of rat poison, and then say the murder was justified because they may have used the bottle to kill little children in the neighbourhood.

[gaelic cowboy]

Not according to wikilinks
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/interna...7pDf7AZ3RO9qnM

Absolute rubbish they would have paraded it on the news for all to see so that McCain could trounce O'Bama if anything I bet it is disinformation to discredit Wikileaks.

[Vladimir]

Absolute rubbish they would have paraded it on the news for all to see so that McCain could trounce O'Bama if anything I bet it is disinformation to discredit Wikileaks.

Are you serious? Leaking tens of thousands of classified documents to discredit Wilikeaks?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well I don't see the US armed forces deliberately fabricating tons of documents for the purpose of discrediting some random online hangout that didn't carry any mainstream clout to speak of. Wikileaks would be fairly obscure back in 2004. On the other hand cowboy is right that if any true WMD were found (and I don't mean some dumped agrarian pesticide or something) news would've been all over it saying how America Was Right All Along.

From that article it looks like the “found” evidence of WMD were (a) remnants of prior chemical weapons/weapon production which dates back to the first Gulf War; (b) stuff that could be anything. From a stock of agrarian pesticides, to local drugs lab, to the stuff that Discovery/Nat Graphic get overly excited about (dropping mint sweets in cola!!)...

[Furunculus]

The military position in Iraq was ruined way before any development aid was needed

BBC News: UK Basra base exit 'not a defeat'

The Yanks basically had to go in and clean up the mess UK left behind it.

sure, decisions like disbanding the army and police were terrible moves, but it was a failure of stabilisation and reconstruction, at a time where our international aid department (you know, that whole joined up conflict prevention business), was unwilling to have anything to do with iraq.

[rory_20_uk]

Although the invading forces - sorry, heroic liberators - made some large blunders that Furunculus has outlined, the reason for this is purely that the Insurgents turned cities intentionally into battlefields.

In Europe in the 19th Century one reason to fight on the plains was to avoid destroying the very things that were being fought over. Saddam fought by these rules and was annihilated in short order. The insurgents too note of this and so fought a different war. I've not got the figures to hand, but what are the civilian casualties in other guerilla wars? This would be more interesting to compare and contrast.

[Furunculus]

Although the invading forces - sorry, heroic liberators - made some large blunders that Furunculus has outlined, the reason for this is purely that the Insurgents turned cities intentionally into battlefields.

In Europe in the 19th Century one reason to fight on the plains was to avoid destroying the very things that were being fought over. Saddam fought by these rules and was annihilated in short order. The insurgents too note of this and so fought a different war. I've not got the figures to hand, but what are the civilian casualties in other guerilla wars? This would be more interesting to compare and contrast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War#Death_toll

[gaelic cowboy]

Are you serious? Leaking tens of thousands of classified documents to discredit Wilikeaks?

No they just slip a few bogus reports in amongst the massive pile to track which department is leaking the documents or even precisely who is leaking the stuff.

It is a fact they found no WMD so wikileaks looks stupid and possibly even in cahoots with US.

If you google it the blogs journo's are already starting questioning the veracity.

[Vladimir]

No they just slip a few bogus reports in amongst the massive pile to track which department is leaking the documents or even precisely who is leaking the stuff.

It is a fact they found no WMD so wikileaks looks stupid and possibly even in cahoots with US.

If you google it the blogs journo's are already starting questioning the veracity.

Because, if it's on the internet it must be true.

[gaelic cowboy]

Because, if it's on the internet it must be true.

Well you and I know that but it only takes a few people to pass on a meme and it can spread like wildfire.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think point (1) can be more accurately reflected as:

Bush administration (and other governments of the allies at the time) had essentially decided upon a war with Iraq and were going to get one: due process, or even a casus belli be damned. From that it should be apparent why opponents of the war consider the war so very very wrong: no need to bring in the quagmire they caused in points 2 thru 4.

EDIT: Or in one laden word that this comes so close to: treason.

I wouldn't go quite that far. If you were to assert that numerous folks in the Bush admin were looking for almost any semi-valid excuse to hammer Saddam, and that they let themselves fall prey to this in their decision-making, I'd agree. It is SO easy to see what you want to see in questionable data if you already have a set goal in mind.

You would have a lot of trouble convincing a jury that it was treasonous. All of the actors in the drama were genuinely convinced that Saddam's removal was in the best interests of the USA; and Saddam had already (at least in strict de jure terms) provided a casus bellum by not adhering to the letter of each of the cease-fire protocols of 1992. As such, it would be hard to argue treason. Negligence, etc. you could make a better case for.

[Strike For The South]

America

Breeding new terrorists one dead father and brother at a time.