Dr. Gideon Polya: ORB Survey and 1.2 million Iraq Deaths ignored by Australian and Anglo-American Media

19 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org

In February 2007, as we approached the Fourth Anniversary of the US-UK-Australian invasion of Iraq, I published an article on Countercurrents entitled “US Iraqi Holocaust and 1 million Excess Deaths” (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-polya070207.htm ) ;
I detailed and documented the following horrendous circumstances in Occupied Iraq: “as of February 2007: (a) the accrual cost has been $2.3 TRILLION; (b) there are 3.7 million Iraqi refugees; (c) the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.0 million (ONE MILLION); (d) post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million; (e) there were 1.7 million excess Iraqi deaths associated with the Western-imposed 1990-2003 Sanctions War; (f) there were 1.2 million under-5 year old infant deaths in the 1990-2003 Sanctions War (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12261/42/ ); and (g) Coalition deaths total about 3,360.”

It is now September 2007 and after a further SEVEN months of US-UK-Australian war and occupation the horrendous human and economic cost has inevitably increased.

As of September 2007:
(a) the accrual cost of the Bush War on Terror stands at $2.5 trillion (as determined by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) ;
(b) there are 4 million Iraqi refugees;
(c) the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.1 million;
(d) post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million (a corrected estimate based on the latest UN data);
(e) there were 1.7 million excess Iraqi deaths associated with the Western-imposed 1990-2003 Sanctions War;
(f) there were 1.2 million under-5 year old infant deaths in the 1990-2003 Sanctions War; and
(g) Coalition military deaths now total about 4,086 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ) .

For detailed analysis and documentation of these latest, updated estimates of the cost of the Iraq War see “The Cost of War”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/ and “US State Terrorism, Iraqi Genocide & Afghan Genocide - 6 years post-9/11 Bush War excess deaths total 4 million”: http://open.newmatilda.com/crosswire/?p=129%20).

These appalling realities have been largely IGNORED by racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring Australian and Anglo-American mainstream media.

In September 2007 a top UK polling organization ORB (Opinion Research Business) has estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have died violently post-invasion (see: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78 ), twice as many as the 0.6 million post-invasion Iraqi violent deaths estimated by the top US Johns Hopkins medical epidemiologists in their research paper published in the top medical journal The Lancet in October 2006 (see: http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf%20).

ORB describes itself thus: “Established in 1994, ORB have grown to become one of the UK’s leading bespoke corporate and issues-led market research companies” (see: http://www.opinion.co.uk/who-we-are.aspx ). The head of ORB was the head of UK Gallup Poll from 1980-1994.

However, only a few Western newspapers (most notably the US Los Angeles Times and the UK Guardian) have carried a report of this important, professional survey. The cowardly, dishonest and unethical UK BBC has failed to report this ORB survey. There has been COMPREHENSIVE NON-REPORTAGE by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Australian Mainstream Media as a whole.

The UK ORB estimate of 1.2 million, violence-related, post-invasion Iraqi deaths is supported by 5 estimates from 4 independent data sets of about 1 million post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) as of September 2007 (for details see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16802/42/ and http://open.newmatilda.com/crosswire/?p=129%20).

As of September 2007, excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in post-invasion Iraq total:

(1) 0.7 million (from conservatively UNDER-estimated UN Population Division data);
(2) 0.8 million (from estimating post-invasion under-5 infant deaths from UNICEF data and dividing by 0.7) (see “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ );
(3) 1.0 million (using data from The Lancet published in 2004);
(4) 1.0 million (using data from The Lancet, published in 2006); and
(5) 1.1 million (the “best estimate”, from using data published in The Lancet in 2006 and using Iraq’s impoverished but peaceful neighbors Syria and Jordan for a comparative mortality baseline).

The following message has been sent to various branches of the Australian ABC, to major Australian Mainstream media and to international journalists and to decent Australian politicians whose Parties (the Australian Greens and the Australian Democrats) object to the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan:

LETTER:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Last week the US Los Angeles Times and the UK Guardian reported the UK ORB survey indicating 1.2 million violence-linked, post-invasion Iraqi deaths, a figure consonant with 5 estimates of about 1 million post-invasion Iraqi excess deaths from 4 independent authoritative data sources (the UN Population Division 2006 Revision, UNICEF and top US medical epidemiologists published in the top medical journal The Lancet in 2004 and 2006) (for documented details see: http://open.newmatilda.com/crosswire/?p=129 ).

ORB is a top UK market research organization and its head was formerly Managing Director of UK Gallup Poll from 1980-1994. However as far as I can judge from the Web, this horrendous statistic has NOT been reported by ANY Australian Mainstream media, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Those resolutely NOT reporting the continuing Coalition mass murder of Iraqis must answer the obvious charge of being anti-Arab anti-Semitic holocaust deniers.

It would be a grievous insult to honest sex workers to apply the obvious descriptive to “Aunty” ABC in the light of its sustained, cowardly, contemptible and racist holocaust-ignoring.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia

END LETTER

What we continue to see is sustained, remorseless, simultaneous Holocaust Commission and Holocaust Denial by the racist US-UK-Australian Coalition,

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. What can decent people do? In short, vote with your feet, oppose Anglo-American “democratic Nazism”. There must be ZERO TOLERANCE for mass murder, racism, genocide, media lying, politician lying and holocaust denial. Don’t vote for the racist liars and mass murderers, don’t buy their newspapers, don’t watch their TV, don’t listen to their radio stations and don’t buy the goods and services of their racist supporters.

Decent people are obliged to:
(a) inform others about horrendous human rights abuses (such as the Iraqi Holocaust, the Iraqi Genocide) and
(b) to act ethically in all their dealings with individuals, corporations and countries complicit in such atrocities (e.g. through individual and collective, inter-national and intra-national Sanctions and Boycotts).

Of course, you can do YOUR bit in the Bush War on Terra and Humanity - the Bush War on Asian, Arab, Muslim and Non-European Women and Children - by simply transmitting this message to everyone you know.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/%20).