Panorama :this sunday night

AmenToThat

As you would imagen its a special about the Iraqi elections.
Anyways...........John Simpson who is covering the elections and also is working on the program for sunday night said tonight on the BBC1 10 o clock news that they had got access to information from the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
The figures detailed civilian deaths from direct military action (that is not the general chaos that has engulfed the country).

From July to december 1200 civilians were killed by insurgents.
For the same period 2000 civilians were killed by the coalition/Iraqi forces.

He stated that the authorities have been keeping these figures for some time but that they are kept secret and only a select few within the provisional authority are aware of them.

I wonder why.............................

He stated that the authorities have been keeping these figures for some time but that they are kept secret and only a select few within the provisional authority are aware of them.

Strange, that they're available now, considering the Media failed to find them for over a year...

pete

Deleted User wrote:

Strange, that they're available now, considering the Media failed to find them for over a year...

John Simpson just said that they had "persuaded the ministry for informatio.... the ministry of health" to release the figures.

He didn't elaborate.

pete

Conflct-related civilian deaths in Iraq. July 2004 to January 2005
3,274 civilians killed in total
2,041 by coalition and Iraqi security forces
1,233 by insurgents
12,657 civilians wounded in total
8,542 by coalition and Iraqi security forces
4,115 by insurgents

BBC obtains Iraq casualty figures

Coalition troops and Iraqi security forces may be responsible for up to 60% of conflict-related civilian deaths in Iraq - far more than are killed by insurgents, confidential records obtained by the BBC's Panorama programme reveal.

Official figures, compiled by Iraq's Ministry of Health, break down deaths according to insurgent and coalition activity. They are usually available only to Iraqi cabinet ministers.

The data covers the period 1 July 2004 to 1 January 2005, and relates to all conflict-related civilian deaths and injuries recorded by Iraqi public hospitals. The figures exclude, where known, the deaths of insurgents.

The figures reveal that 3,274 Iraqi civilians were killed and 12,657 wounded in conflict-related violence during the period.

Of those deaths, 60% - 2,041 civilians - were killed by the coalition and Iraqi security forces. A further 8,542 were wounded by them.

Insurgent attacks claimed 1,233 lives, and wounded 4,115 people, during the same period.

Panorama interviewed US Ambassador John Negroponte shortly before it obtained the figures. He told reporter John Simpson:

"My impression is that the largest amount of civilian casualties definitely is a result of these indiscriminate car bombings.

"You yourself are aware of those as they occur in the Baghdad area and more frequently than not the largest number of victims of these acts of terror are innocent civilian bystanders".

The coalition has yet to respond to the figures.

Panorama's film Exit Strategy, reported by BBC world affairs editor John Simpson from Baghdad, will be shown at 2215 GMT, Sunday night on BBC One.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/panorama/4217413.stm

pete

Iraq Health Ministry Figures
On Thursday, January 27 2005, the Iraqi Ministry of Health released to the BBC's Panorama programme statistics which stated that for the six-month period from 1 July 2004 to 1 January 2005:


3,274 people in Iraq were killed and 12, 657 injured in conflict related violence
2,041 of these deaths were the result of "military operations", in which 8,542 people were injured
1,233 deaths were the result of "terrorist operations"
These figures were based on records from Iraqi public hospitals.

The BBC reported these figures as meaning that the deaths and injuries resulting from "military operations" were the result of actions by the Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces.

Today, the Iraqi Ministry of Health has issued a statement clarifying matters that were the subject of several conversations with the BBC before the report was published, and denying that this conclusion can be drawn from the figures relating to military operations.

It states that those recorded as killed in military action included Iraqis killed by terrorists, not only those killed by Coalition forces or Iraqi security forces; and that those recorded as killed in military action included terrorists themselves, and Iraqi security forces.

The BBC regrets mistakes in its published and broadcast reports yesterday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4219451.stm

chewy

ok so now they've corrected their main premise? hmmm

but even and before and after that correction how does that correlate with the 100,000 (_estimated_ deaths) from that Lancet article...

are those figures above just from armed conflict and not death from poor conditions excarbated by the continueing situation?

shotamoose

It's not worthwhile to try and compare the Ministry of Health figures with the results of the Lancet study. The MoH figures are passively collected, i.e. they only count people who show up at hospitals. And they only count victims of violence. The Lancet study actually went round and interviewed a representative sample of Iraqi households (i.e. they actively collected data), and they counted all 'excess mortality' (not just deaths at the hands of coalition or insurgent forces, but including deaths from 'poor conditions' as you say) over a year. They came up with a most probable figure of around 100,000 excess deaths over a year.