Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett
Nevertheless, another report has just been released documenting the callous killing of innocents including the categories of killers and the how and where of massacre. Dr. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks and her colleagues have published a “Dirty War Index” detailing violent deaths of Iraqi civilians during five years (2003-2008) of U.S. /UK war against the people of Iraq.
Their findings show that of 92,614 civilian deaths (documented by NGO Iraq Body Count), “unknown perpetrators” caused 74 percent (n = 68,396), of civilian deaths, [U.S./UK-led “coalition [uniformed] forces” caused 12 percent (n = 11,516), and “anti-coalition forces” [un-uniformed combatants identified by attacks on coalition targets] caused 11 percent (n = 9,954) of civilian deaths.
Researchers recount: that since the Iraq war began on March 20, 2003 — when a multilateral force led by United States and United Kingdom invaded Iraq — more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians (women, children, noncombatants, and police carrying out non-paramilitary duties) have died because of armed violence, according to the Iraq Body Count. Referenced regularly on Today’s Insight News, IBC is a nongovernmental project collating media reports of deaths of individual Iraqi civilians and crosschecking the reports with data from hospitals, morgues, nongovernmental organizations, and official figures.
In their analysis in a “Dirty War Index” indicating the scale of indiscriminate killing in conflict, the researchers found —
The most indiscriminate effects on women and children in Iraq were from unknown perpetrators firing mortars (Dirty War Index = 79) and non-suicide vehicle bombs (Dirty War Index = 54), and from coalition air attacks (Dirty War Index = 69).
Coalition forces had a higher Dirty War Index than anti-coalition forces for all weapons combined,” the researchers said, “with no decrease over the study period,” 2003-2008.
Deaths caused by Coalition forces of Iraqi civilians, women, and children peaked during the invasion period, with relatively indiscriminate effects from aerial weapons.
Unknown perpetrators causing most Iraqi civilian violent deaths (2003–2008) did so “primarily through extrajudicial executions that disproportionately increased in regions with greater numbers of violent deaths.
Unknown perpetrators using suicide bombs, vehicle bombs, and mortars had highly lethal and indiscriminate effects on targeted Iraqi civilians. Indistinguishable from their victims, they were responsible for three-quarters of civilian deaths
Unknown perpetrator suicide bombings that targeted civilians and coalition aerial bombings killed most civilians per lethal event. The highest average number of civilians killed per event in which a civilian died were in Unknown perpetrator suicide bombings targeting civilians (19 per lethal event) and Coalition aerial bombings (17 per lethal event)
Extra-judicial executions by unknown perpetrators were responsible for one-third of civilian deaths and disproportionately increased as deaths from other forms of violence increased across Iraq.
In laying out grounds for the content and focus of their study, the researchers said, “Detailed analysis of civilian deaths during wars is important because it can improve the understanding of the impact of these deaths on general public health and on vulnerable subgroups in the population.” Data collected on the nature and effects of violence can guide the development of preventive policies.
An analysis revealing “that air attacks by invading troops cause a high proportion of civilian deaths might encourage policy changes that prohibit air attacks on populated areas.”
An analysis of civilian deaths, which links violent deaths to perpetrators “can provide an indicator of combatants; compliance with the laws of war, which require the protection of civilians from targeted or indiscriminate harm.”
There are laws of war, international humanitarian laws and customary standards, governing the treatment of civilians and combatants (e.g., the Geneva Conventions). Moreover, it is well known among human beings that the death of civilians through armed violence — despite internationally agreed humanitarian standards regarding the treatment of civilians during wars — causes catastrophes for human beings (health and humanitarian problems, cultural and interpersonal, state and environmental problems) that, as Ann Jones writes, continues long after officials have signed papers purporting to end a war or decrease "combatants."
Sources and notes
PLoS Medicine: “Violent Deaths of Iraqi Civilians, 2003–2008: Analysis by Perpetrator, Weapon, Time, and Location,” http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000415
Dr Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks (MD MA MRCPsych) is an honorary lecturer in Health Service and Population Research departments at King’s College London and is a cross-cultural psychiatrist with a background in medical anthropology. “Her research interests focus on sociocultural and epidemiological aspects of violence, depression, suicidality and help-seeking.” A native of the United States, she is an expatriate in Britain and has studied and worked in both countries.
Publications include Li Z, Hicks MH. (2010) The CES-D in Chinese American women: construct validity, diagnostic validity for major depression, and cultural response bias. Psychiatry Research, 175: 227-232; Hicks MH, Dardagan H, Guerrero Serdán G, Bagnall PM, Sloboda JA, Spagat M. (2009) ’The Weapons That Kill Civilians — Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, 2003-2008’. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(16): 1585-1588. This article is freely accessible at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/16/1585; Cameron E, Spagat M, Hicks MH. (2009) Tracking Civilian Casualties in Combat Zones using Civilian Battle Damage Assessment Ratios. British Army Review, 147: 87-93; Hicks MH, Spagat M. (2008) ’The Dirty War Index: A public health and human rights tool for examining and monitoring armed conflict outcomes’. PLoS Medicine, 5(12): e243, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050243. This article is freely accessible at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050243; Rubio-Stipec M, Canino I, Hicks MH & Tsuang M. (2008) ‘Ethnic, Cultural, & Socioeconomic Factors Influencing the Selection, Use and Interpretation of Measures’. In Handbook of Psychiatric Measures, 2nd Edition. Rush AJ, First MB & Blacker D (Eds). American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.: Washington DC. pp 23-32; Hicks MH. (2007) Mortality in Iraq. Lancet, 369: 101-102; Hicks MH. (2006) ’Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: Were valid and ethical field methods used in this survey?’ This working paper is posted as HiCN Research Design Note 3 on the Conflict Research Design Platform page of the Households in Conflict Network website: http://www.hicn.org/research_design.html
Institute of Psychiatry-Maudsley King's College London, University of London, http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/staff/profile/?go=11023
[LONDON]: “More than 92,600 civilians were killed in armed violence in Iraq from 2003 to 2008 — U.S.-led coalition forces showed higher rates of indiscriminate killing of women and children than insurgents, a study has found,” February 16, 2011, http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/16/civilian-death-study-rates%e2%80%9ddirty-war%e2%80%9d-in-iraq.html
“Analysis of Violent Deaths of Iraqi Civilians Between 2003-2008” Science Daily (February 15, 2011) — A paper published in this week's issue of PLoS Medicine provides the most detailed assessment thus far of civilian deaths in the course of the recent Iraq war. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks from King's College London, UK and colleagues analyzed data from Iraq Body Count (IBC), a nongovernmental project that collates media reports of deaths of individual Iraqi civilians and crosschecks these reports with data from hospitals, morgues, nongovernmental organizations, and official figures. Story Source: The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Public Library of Science, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Since the start of the war against Iraq on March 20, 2003, Iraq Body Count (IBC), a nongovernmental organization, has systematically collated a wide range of war data as a means of monitoring and documenting Iraqi civilian casualties from armed violence. The resulting database interlinks specific violent events with their perpetrators, the weapons used, the individual civilians killed, and the victim’s demographic characteristics, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
The Iraq war has involved both conventional state-to-state warfare and asymmetric, irregular warfare, with continuous international media coverage that has resulted in detailed reports on thousands of events causing civilian death.
Updated figures as of February 16, 2011, Iraq Body Count— Documented civilian deaths from violence: 99,711 – 108,864
The War is not over when it’s over: women speak out from the ruins of war, Ann Jones (Metropolitan Books, 2010)
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