HOLD-UP A BABA GURGUR par Gilles Munier

Manifestation anti fédéraliste avec drapeaux irakiens et turcomans à Kirkouk

(Afrique Asie - octobre 2007)

http://www.afrique-asie.fr/article.php?article=215

France-Irak Actualité, le Blog de Gilles Munier : http://www.gmunier.blogspot.com/

Poussés par leurs dirigeants, des centaines de milliers de Kurdes d’Irak, mais aussi des Kurdistans syrien, iranien, turc, s’installent à Kirkouk. Bien plus que le nombre d’habitants expulsés du temps de Saddam Hussein. Le but : modifier la composition ethnique de la ville avant le référendum qui décidera du statut de la région fin 2007.

Depuis le 10 avril 2003 – lendemain de la chute de Bagdad - on assiste à Kirkouk à une véritable invasion kurde : Massoud Barzani et Jalal Talabani, respectivement dirigeants du Parti Démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK) et de l’Union Patriotique du Kurdistan (UPK) organisent militairement l’immigration massive des Kurdes vers les territoires irakiens qu’ils veulent conquérir. Les nouveaux venus s’inscrivent sur les listes électorales et attendent le référendum devant se dérouler avant le 31 décembre prochain. But de l’opération : donner un vernis démocratique à l’annexion de la région par les Kurdes et céder aux Américains le champ pétrolifère de Baba Gurgur, situé près de Kirkouk.

Turcomans et Kurdes

L’International Crisis Group (ISG) a recueilli le témoignage d’un membre – turcoman - du Gouvernorat qui résume la situation : « En 2003, Kirkouk avait 800 000 habitants. Elle en a maintenant 1 150 000. D’où viennent les 300 000 habitants supplémentaires ? Ils correspondent à 50 000 familles. On sait que 10 000 familles ont été expulsées, d’où viennent ces 40 000 familles supplémentaires ? ». Depuis, la population est passée à 1 500 000 habitants, majoritairement kurdes, donc pour l’annexion.

La mise en œuvre de l’opération n’est pas simple car l’article 140 de la nouvelle « constitution » irakienne stipule que le référendum doit être précédé par la « normalisation » de la situation dans la région, et par un « recensement ». La « normalisation » est en cours. Elle signifie le retour des Kurdes, Turcomans et Assyriens déplacés et - parallèlement - le départ des Arabes qui les ont remplacés. Des pressions sont exercées sur les Kurdes qui refusent d’y retourner parce qu’ils ont refait leur vie ailleurs ou craignent que l’annexion tourne au bain de sang. Pour les faire changer d’avis, le « Gouvernement régional kurde » ne leur délivre plus de documents administratifs et les prive d’aides sociales.

Les méthodes employées contre les non-Kurdes sont plus radicales. S’ils refusent les 15 000 dollars de dédommagement, ils risquent d’être assassinés ou de disparaître dans les prisons de la Région autonome. L’attentat du 7 juillet 2007 à Amirli – 150 morts, 250 blessés - rappelle la sauvagerie de l’Irgoun en Palestine. Sur place, les services secrets kurdes sont accusés et la réponse n’a pas tardé : le 16 juillet une voiture a explosé à Kirkouk devant un siège de l’UPK, faisant de nombreuses victimes.

Les nouveaux arrivants à Kirkouk n’y vivent pas tous. Beaucoup restent à Soulimaniya ou à Erbil, faute de logements ou pour des raisons de sécurité. Ils n’y vont que le week-end pour justifier leur « déménagement ». A Kirkouk, il suffit de creuser des fondations ou de réserver un appartement dans un immeuble à construire, pour devenir électeur…Le « recensement », néanmoins, n’est pas facile à organiser. Il doit faire le décompte ethnique et religieux des habitants de la région de Kirkouk, et celui des « territoires disputés », c'est-à-dire revendiqués par les Kurdes. Le problème, c’est qu’ils s’étendent du Mont Sinjar à la frontière syrienne, jusqu’à la frontière iranienne… et à une vingtaine de kilomètres au sud de Bagdad. Pour les Arabes, Turcomans, Yézidis, Shabaks, et Assyriens qui peuplent les lieux depuis des lustres, tous hostiles à la partition de l’Irak, c’est une déclaration de guerre. Il y a toujours eu des Kurdes à Kirkouk, mais ceux qui prétendent que la ville est kurde falsifient l’histoire. Les archives ottomanes, les récits de voyageurs, les rapports des diplomates en poste en Mésopotamie et des espions – notamment de l’Intelligence Service au début du 20ème siècle – attestent sans exception que Kirkouk et sa région sont turcomanes. Les dirigeants kurdes font remonter leur droit de constituer un Etat au Traité de Sèvres de 1920, mais oublient de dire que le Kurdistan promis… ne comprenait pas Kirkouk. A l’époque, les Britanniques n’auraient pas apprécié qu’ils réclament une région aux ressources prometteuses : les veines pétrolifères détectées allaient de Mossoul à Kasr El Chirin, en passant sous Tuz Khurmatu, Kifri, Mandali, régions peuplées majoritairement de Turcomans, et non de Kurdes. En février 1925, la commission de la Société des Nations qui enquêtait sur la question de Mossoul – attribuée à la France par l’accord Sykes-Picot - proposa officieusement aux dirigeants irakiens de rattacher le wilayet à l’Irak s’ils s’engageaient à céder la Compagnie Turque des Pétroles aux Britanniques, ce qu’ils firent. La frontière irakienne fut donc tracée comme le souhaitaient les Anglais.

La découverte de l’immense champ pétrolifère de Baba Gurgur, le 15 octobre 1927, bouleversa l’équilibre ethnique des alentours. Aux Kurdes qui y vivaient, s’ajoutèrent ceux recrutés par l’Irak Petroleum Company (IPC) : montagnards réputés dociles et durs à l’ouvrage. Le quartier Imam Kassim, à Kirkouk, leur fut réservé. L’IPC les préférait aux Turcomans soupçonnés de kémalisme, et les utilisait pour contrer l’influence grandissante du nationalisme arabe et du bolchevisme en Irak.

Les Kurdes de Kirkouk sont pour une bonne part descendants des réfugiés des guerres déclenchées sous la monarchie et les régimes républicains. La révolte de Cheikh Mahmoud, proclamé « roi du Kurdistan » en novembre 1922, fut écrasée dans le sang. Des milliers de montagnards kurdes, fuyant les bombardements au gaz mortels de la RAF, s’y réfugièrent. En 1945, la première révolte de Mustapha Barzani fut également écrasée par les Anglais. Les habitants des villages détruits y affluèrent eux aussi, tandis que leur chef trouvait asile en URSS après une courte période comme général dans l’éphémère République kurde de Mahabad, en Iran.

La guerre pour Kirkouk

Après le renversement de la monarchie, le 14 juillet 1958, le Président Abdel Karim Kassem décréta une amnistie générale. Barzani, alors pro communiste, rentra triomphalement à Bagdad. L’entente entre eux dura deux ans, jusqu’à ce que le chef kurde – conseillé par les Soviétiques désireux de gêner les approvisionnements pétroliers occidentaux - exige la création d’une région autonome avec Kirkouk pour capitale. Kassem lui déclara aussitôt la guerre. En septembre 1961, des milliers de réfugiés kurdes aboutirent à Kirkouk. Ils furent installés à Iskan, à l’est de la ville.

L’URSS soutenant finalement les gouvernements irakiens successifs, Barzani se tourna vers l’Iran, Israël et les Etats-Unis qui l’utilisèrent pour déstabiliser le régime des frères Aref, puis les baasistes arrivés au pouvoir en juillet 1968. En juin 1972, Barzani s’opposa à la nationalisation de l’IPC affirmant que le pétrole du nord était kurde et qu’il en céderait l’exploitation aux Américains dès l’accession du Kurdistan à l’indépendance. En mars 1974, il refusa la loi d’autonomie négociée avec Saddam Hussein, prétextant que la carte de la Région n’englobait pas Kirkouk. Les combats reprirent, avec leur lot de morts et de réfugiés. La guerre Iran-Irak en septembre 1980 entraîna la destruction de nouveaux villages le long des frontières avec l’Iran. Les rescapés se retrouvèrent dans des hameaux construits dans la plaine d’Erbil. Depuis la chute de Bagdad, le 9 avril 2003, ils ont été transférés à Kirkouk dans la perspective du référendum.

La guerre du Golfe de 1991, l’embargo puis le renversement de Saddam Hussein, ont donné aux séparatistes kurdes l’opportunité de créer un Etat. Sauront-ils la saisir ? Rien n’est moins sûr, car Kirkouk n’est pas seulement une pomme de discorde entre Irakiens – Arabes et Turcomans contre Kurdes - mais entre Massoud Barzani et Talabani qui se détestent cordialement. Ce dernier se prévaut de droits spécifiques, arguant que la plupart des Kurdes de Kirkouk parle le Sorani, dialecte de Soulimaniya, son fief.

Les deux chefs de guerre se livrent à une surenchère verbale sans en mesurer les conséquences. Pour Barzani, Kirkouk est « le cœur du Kurdistan », et pour Talabani le « Jérusalem des Kurdes », une suggestion, dit-on, du Mossad israélien. Forts des promesses américaines, ils pensent l’emporter. S’ils réussissent, la ville sera la capitale de la Région autonome, puis d’un Etat « indépendant », et peut-être un jour celle d’un « Grand Kurdistan » englobant les régions kurdes des pays limitrophes. L’entreprise américaine Bechtel qui a construit le pipeline Kirkouk-Haïfa – fermé avec la création d’Israël en 1948 - étudie déjà les moyens d’alimenter Israël en pétrole et en eau à partir du Kurdistan irakien…

C’est évidement compter sans la résistance irakienne, et la réaction plus ou moins violente de la Turquie où des kémalistes estiment avoir un droit de regard sur l’ancien wilayet de Mossoul. C’est aussi ignorer Moqtada Sadr qui soutient les chiites des Marais expulsés de Kirkouk. Cela ne leur enlève pas le droit de vote dans le gouvernorat, dit-il. Les transferts d’inscriptions d’Arabes ou des Turcomans sur des listes électorales d’autres régions – en échange de quelques centaines de dollars - sont parfaitement illégaux. Il se propose d’organiser avec eux un référendum parallèle si les Kurdes maintiennent le leur.

Le hold-up kurde en préparation à Kirkouk inquiète le Proche-Orient. Selon Al-Binah al-Jadidah, quotidien chiite bagdadi, le roi Abdallah d’Arabie a proposé en avril dernier à Massoud Barzani et Borham Saleh, « Vice-Premier ministre » irakien, 2 milliards de dollars pour qu’ils reportent le référendum de 10 ans. Ils ont refusé.

Bloomberg Markets estime les réserves pétrolières de la Région autonome à 25 milliards de barils. Avec Kirkouk – 10 milliards de barils – et les « territoires disputés » – 20 milliards de barils – les revenus du « Grand Kurdistan irakien » dépasseraient ceux du Mexique ou du Nigeria. On comprend que ces chiffres donnent le vertige aux chefs féodaux kurdes et suscitent à l’étranger bien des convoitises.

AMITIES FRANCO - IRAKIENNES - Communiqué de Presse

Une lettre à Nicolas Sarkozy :
Sept propositions pour contribuer au rétablissement de la paix en Irak

Le Bureau des Amitiés franco-irakiennes, élargi à des personnalités de la société civile connues pour l’intérêt qu’elles portent à la situation en Irak et au Proche-Orient et pour leur attachement à la politique arabe de la France, s’est réuni le jeudi 4 octobre à Paris sous la présidence de Maurice Buttin, co-président de l’association.

Le Bureau a décidé d’adresser à Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy, Président de la République, sept propositions dont la mise en œuvre permettrait à la France de contribuer au rétablissement de la concorde et de la paix en Irak.

L’Association des Amitiés franco-irakiennes se réunira à nouveau d’ici la fin novembre pour analyser la suite donnée à ces propositions.

Paris, le 6 octobre 2007

Contact : Gilles Munier, Secrétaire général - 06 19 74 45 99 – gilmun@club-internet.fr

Iraq Body Count: "A Very Misleading Exercise"

By Media Lens
05 October,2007

Media Lens


The mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps 5-10% of the true death toll.


As we recently reported, only a handful of media outlets covered a new ORB poll revealing that 1.2 million Iraqis had been murdered since the 2003 invasion. BBC Online provided a rare example:
“A UK-based polling agency, Opinion Research Business (ORB), said it had extrapolated the figure by asking a random sample of 1,461 Iraqi adults how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.

“The results lend weight to a 2006 survey of Iraqi households published by the Lancet, which suggested that about 655,000 Iraqi deaths were ‘a consequence of the war’.

“However, these estimates are both far higher than the running total of reported civilian deaths maintained by the campaign group Iraq Body Count which puts the figure at between 71,000 and 78,000.” (BBC Online, ‘US contractors in Iraq shootout,’ September 17, 2007)
BBC’s Newsnight programme used IBC’s figures in the same way:
“More than a million Iraqis have been killed since the invasion in 2003, according to the British polling company ORB. The study’s likely to fuel controversy over the true, human cost of the war. It’s significantly up on the previous highest estimate of 650,000 deaths published by the Lancet last October… The independent Iraqi [sic] Body Count group puts the current total at closer to 75,000.” (Newsnight, BBC2, September 14, 2007)

These reports again raise serious issues about what IBC’s figures actually mean, how they are being used and misused to cast doubt on higher numbers, and about what IBC is doing to promote or reduce the confusion. (See our 2006 Media Alerts archive for previous analysis, beginning here.)
Just “Care And Literacy” — No Extrapolations Required

In its latest press release, ‘The State of Knowledge on Civilian Casualties in Iraq,’ IBC explains ‘What IBC Does’:
“Provides an irrefutable baseline figure”
Similarly in 2006, IBC wrote: “We are providing a conservative cautious minimum.”

These both describe laudable objectives involving little more than accurate data collection. IBC co-founder John Sloboda made the point in a BBC interview in response to criticism that he and his colleagues were “amateurs” in the field of mortality studies:
“Our position is, and always has been, that reading press reports, which is what this job is, requires nothing other than care and literacy. The whole point about it is that it doesn’t require statistical analysis or extrapolations.”
And yet in their latest press release (September 3, 2007), under the title, ’How plausible is 600,000 violent Iraqi deaths?’, IBC devote five pages to wide-ranging criticism of the 2006 Lancet study which estimated 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq.
IBC’s conclusion:
“Our own view is that the current death toll +could+ be around twice the numbers recorded by IBC and the various official sources in Iraq. We do not think it could possibly be 10 times higher.”
In similar vein, the Toronto Star quoted IBC co-founder John Sloboda as saying:
“The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher.” (Haroon Siddiqui, ‘How many civilians have died?’ Toronto Star, September 20, 2007)

This last comment was reported less than a week after the publication of ORB’s poll revealing 1.2 million Iraqi deaths.

Two questions arise: Why is it important for IBC — providing an “irrefutable baseline” based on data collection — to challenge the methodology and conclusions of epidemiological studies published in the Lancet which go far beyond data collection and which do not in any way challenge their baseline as a “cautious minimum”?

Secondly, while IBC’s self-described task does indeed require only “care and literacy”, does not the task of challenging peer-reviewed science published by some of the world’s leading epidemiologists require very much more? Does it not, in fact “require statistical analysis or extrapolations,” and much else besides?

In a 2006 addition to their website, IBC wowed visitors with scientific jargon:
“Our data is very rich, because it provides a large subset of what is happening.
“It has high spatiotemporal specificity. Post-event interviews are always hampered by the fact that people tend to move on, and may not remain in the area or even in the country. Our data is recorded as close to the time and place of death as possible, and so has ‘forensic’ elements.”

It seems that IBC have used their credibility as data collectors to ‘cross sell’ their credibility as commentators on peer-reviewed epidemiology to the media community. But this second task is unrelated to their task as data collectors, and is an area in which, to our knowledge, none of the co-authors of their press releases have any research record or publication history in any relevant scientific discipline.

In a 2006 BBC interview, John Sloboda said of the 2004 Lancet study:
“Some critics of the Lancet study have said it’s like a drunk throwing a dart at a dartboard. It’s going to go somewhere, but who knows if that number is the bulls eye.

“Unfortunately many many people have decided to accept that that 98,000 figure is the truth - or the best approximation to the truth that we have.”
Sloboda was here endorsing a claim based on a failure to comprehend even the basic meaning of the Lancet study’s range of figures — the “drunk throwing a dart at a dartboard” analogy was and is absurd. No qualified epidemiologist would countenance making such a comment.

Unsurprisingly, most journalists reporting on international affairs appear unable to distinguish between the task of “reading press reports” on the one hand, and engaging in “statistical analysis or extrapolations”, on the other.

Reporters naturally assume that, given its “high spatiotemporal specificity”, IBC’s credibility is on a par with the world’s leading experts in the field published in the world’s leading scientific journals and subject to an exacting system of peer review.

Certainly IBC do nothing to discourage, and everything to encourage, such a view. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable for IBC to point out in commenting on the Lancet studies to highly influential media that they are in fact +not+ especially qualified to comment on the science of epidemiology?

The Problem Of Relying On The Journalistic Record
IBC also move far beyond data collection in this latest addition to the site:
“Those who suggest that the IBC data-base is likely to contain only a tiny minority of actual deaths generally argue three things. First, they say that IBC only records deaths in areas where Western journalists are present; second they propose that there have been at least seven credible studies which suggest up to ten times as many deaths as we have recorded; and third they assert that an alternate media world exists containing a professional Arab-language press which continually reports far more deaths than the sources we monitor in English.

“We have dealt with the first two claims in detail on the public record and will be happy to answer questions about them in the discussion. IBC in Context (Feb 2006)”
IBC omit to mention the most obvious and telling criticism: that the credibility of their database as an approximate guide to levels of violence in Iraq — i.e., “The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher” — is undermined by the fact that conditions in Iraq are so lethal that journalists are unable to discover many violent deaths of civilians.

Consider that a study of deaths in Guatemala from 1960 to 1996 by Patrick Ball et al at the University of California, Berkeley (1999) found that numbers of murders reported by the media in fact decreased as violence increased. Ball described the “problem of relying on the journalistic record” in evaluating numbers killed:

“When the level of violence increased dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s, numbers of reported violations in the press stayed very low. In 1981, one of the worst years of state violence, the numbers fall towards zero. The press reported almost none of the rural violence.” (Patrick Ball, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer, ‘State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection’, 1999)

Ball added:
“Throughout the 1980 to 1983 period newspapers documented only a fraction of the killings and disappearances committed by the State. The maximum monthly value on the graph [see link above] is only 60 for a period when monthly extra-judicial murders regularly totaled in the thousands.”
Ball explained that “the press stopped reporting the violence beginning in September 1980. Perhaps not coincidentally, the database lists seven murders of journalists in July and August of that year”.

The significance is indicated in a Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) report (September 7, 2007), which described how the number of journalists and media workers killed in Iraq since the start of the 2003 invasion had reached 200. According to RSF, 73 per cent of journalists killed had been directly targeted, a figure which was “much higher than in previous wars”. RSF also reported that more journalists had been taken hostage in Iraq than anywhere else in the world. A total of 84 journalists and media workers had been kidnapped in the previous four years.

Lancet study co-authors Les Roberts and Gilbert Burnham wrote recently:
“A study of 13 war affected countries presented at a recent Harvard conference found over 80% of violent deaths in conflicts go unreported by the press and governments.” (Roberts and Burnham, ‘Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option‘)

We contacted the author of the study, Ziad Obermeyer, for details. Demonstrating a level of scientific caution that is absent from some of IBC’s bold pronouncements, Obermeyer responded that because his manuscript was progressing through the peer review process he could not provide anything for “formal citation”. He added:
“It is safe to say, however, that our estimates of violent war deaths, based on nationally representative surveys, are substantially higher than those commonly cited for most of the 13 countries we study.” (Email to Media Lens, September 24, 2007)

Roberts and Burnham continued:
“City officials in the Iraqi city of Najaf were recently quoted on Middle East Online stating that 40,000 unidentified bodies have been buried in that city since the start of the conflict. When speaking to the Rotarians in a speech covered on C-SPAN on September 5th, H.E. Samir Sumaida’ie, the Iraqi Ambassador to the US, stated that there were 500,000 new widows in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton Commission similarly found that the Pentagon under-counted violent incidents by a factor of 10.” (Roberts and Burnham op. cit)

IBC’s methodology was devised by Marc Herold, a professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire. Herold has tracked deaths in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of 2001. It was Herold’s Afghan Victim Memorial Project that inspired John Sloboda to set up IBC. Herold’s “most conservative estimate” of Afghan civilian deaths resulting from American/NATO operations is between 5,700 and 6,500. But, he cautions, this is “probably a vast underestimate”. (Haroon Siddiqui, ‘Counting the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ Toronto Star, September 23, 2007)

There is no reason to believe that the application of the same methodology in Iraq is generating very different results. But IBC has never, to our knowledge, accepted that their own count is “probably a vast underestimate” of the total death toll.

In the past, IBC’s response to the suggestion that violence prevents journalists from capturing many deaths has been, in effect, ‘Prove it!’ Well, the bureau chief of one of three Western media agencies providing a third of IBC’s data from Iraq sent this email to a colleague last year (the latter asked us to preserve the sender’s anonymity):
“iraq body count is i think a very misleading exercise. We know they must have been undercounting for at least the first two years because we know that we did not report anything like all the deaths we were aware of… we are also well aware that we are not aware of many deaths on any given day.” (Email sent October 25, 2006)

Despite IBC’s claims, nowhere in their discussion do they deal with the problem that journalistic reporting of violent deaths can decrease as violence increases, particularly when that includes violence against journalists, as is very much the case in Iraq.

More to the point, as data collectors, IBC are not in a position to comment authoritatively on the impact of violence on the capacity of journalists to report accurately from Iraq. As data collectors, they have no more insight, no deeper understanding, than anyone else.

The reasonable response to the question of political impacts on their database is not for IBC to authoritatively suggest that they “have dealt with” the problem of lack of journalistic coverage — to conclusively declare: “The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher” — but to openly acknowledge that their task is limited to the monitoring of media reports.

For leading mainstream journalists, and for IBC themselves, to present IBC as an informed and credible source on political realities on the ground in Iraq is highly inappropriate.

A good example of this distortion was provided on September 7 by Michael Gordon of the New York Times. Gordon offered positive spin on the ‘progress’ of the ’surge’:
“The most comprehensive and up-to-date military statistics show that American forces have made some headway toward a crucial goal of protecting the Iraqi population.” (Gordon, ‘Assessing the “Surge” - Hints of Progress, and Questions, in Iraq Data,’ New York Times, September 8, 2007)

In assessing evidence for this humanitarian “headway”, Gordon turned to IBC:
“Iraq Body Count, a British-based nongovernmental group that monitors civilian deaths, notes that the number of civilians who were killed by shootings, executions and bombs has declined from January through July.”

He quoted IBC:
“’Levels of violence reached an all-time high in the last six months of 2006… Only in comparison to that could the first half of 2007 be regarded as an improvement.’”
The last caveat was unimportant, the word supporters of the occupation were looking for was “improvement”.

But there is a problem with IBC’s evidence and with Gordon’s analysis of its significance. In fact, IBC have not at all found that “the number of civilians who were killed by shootings, executions and bombs has declined”. The website has found fewer +reports+ of deaths of civilians killed by shootings, executions and bombs in “information gathering and publishing agencies, principally the commercial news media who provide web access to their reports”.

While a significant proportion of the deaths recorded or corroborated by IBC come from “cumulative totals reported by official Iraqi sources, in particular the Medico-Legal Institutes (morgues) and, for corroboration purposes, the Ministry of Health”, IBC describes the commercial news media as their “main sources”. (Ibid)

And Les Roberts has commented:
“Media and government reports catch only the tip of the iceberg.” (Siddiqui, op. cit.)

For IBC to emphasise that “the first half of 2007 [could] be regarded as an improvement” on the basis of their data collection is therefore misleading. Indeed the whole basis of IBC’s comment was misleading:
“Levels of violence reached an all-time high in the last six months of 2006.”
In fact, levels of media +reporting+ of civilian deaths was at an all-time high in the last six months of 2006 — that is not the same thing. As a consequence, and as the material cited above from Patrick Ball and RSF makes clear, IBC are in a position to comment +only+ on numbers of media reports of deaths, not on the inferred significance of those numbers for political realities on the ground.

The Failure To Challenge Media Distortions
What is so disappointing is that while IBC are willing to stray radically beyond merely “reading press reports” with “care and literacy” to challenge scientific studies that do not in any way challenge their “irrefutable baseline figure”, they are apparently not willing to challenge media reports that in effect do challenge that figure. The New York Times report above was a good example. Another appeared in the Financial Times on September 10:

“The war has already cost the lives of 3,760 US troops, and wounded 28,000 more. Iraq Body Count, a group that monitors Iraqi deaths, estimates that 70,000 Iraqis have been killed. It says there has been a ‘modest improvement’ in security compared with the bloody second half of 2006….” (Demetri Sevastopulo, ‘Echoes of Westmoreland and Vietnam,’ Financial Times, September 10, 2007)

But IBC is +not+ “a group that monitors Iraqi deaths”; it is a group that monitors media reports of Iraqi deaths. And IBC does not monitor “Iraqi deaths”; it monitors media reports of Iraqi +civilian+ deaths as a result of violence. IBC does not monitor reports of war-related deaths due to disease, lack of food, water and medicine, and so on. IBC also does not collect reports of Iraqi military deaths.

Because IBC’s “irrefutable baseline” figure refers only to violent deaths of civilians reported by the media, the Financial Times in effect challenged that baseline by asserting that 70,000 Iraqis — i.e., civilians and military — had died. Readers might well have construed that some of these “Iraqi deaths” must have been military deaths, for example, and therefore will have come away from the article believing that many less than 70,000 civilians had died from violence.

The Financial Times could hardly be a more prestigious, influential and high-profile media outlet. And this kind of distortion has been repeated innumerable times, globally, since 2003. Notice, again, the complete inappropriateness of quoting IBC as an authoritative source reporting “a ‘modest improvement’ in security” on the basis of its data collection. As the Guatemala study above indicates, the drop in media reporting could be interpreted as indicating a +worsening+ of security, not least for journalists, leading to a drop in reporting of violent deaths.

Whereas IBC have responded vigorously, indeed tirelessly, in responding to the 2004 and 2006 Lancet studies (and to our criticism), to our knowledge they have all but ignored these actual challenges to their baseline figure — a figure which seeks to establish a “cautious minimum” for violent deaths of Iraqi civilians +alone+, not for “Iraqi casualties” in toto, as the Financial Times report suggests.

Indeed, far from exposing these abuses of their work, under ‘Press and media uses of IBC,’ IBC provide not a single word of criticism of media use of their work. Instead, one of the examples they choose to highlight is an Independent article from July 2005. The first sentence of the article reads:
“Almost 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the two years of war and insurgency that began with the US-led invasion in March 2003. More than a third have died as a result of action by allied forces.” (Terry Kirby and Elizabeth Davies, ‘Iraq conflict claims 34 civilian lives each day as “anarchy” beckons,’ The Independent, July 20, 2005)

It is striking that IBC link to a high-profile media report that so badly misrepresents its figures. As so often, this opening sentence gave the impression that IBC are recording the total number of civilian deaths, rather than merely recording deaths from violence as reported by the media. The extreme gravity of this distortion in downplaying the true extent of Iraqi casualties to the British public is clear enough, given, for example, Patrick Ball’s work.

Elsewhere, IBC write:
“A large number of press and media reports have cited our figures, discussed and assessed our work. Nearly all mentions have been in the context of drawing attention to the human cost of the war.” (John Sloboda, February 17, 2006)
Again, this is not mere data collection; it is political analysis of media performance. Having ourselves studied media reporting on Iraq closely over the last four years, we arrive at a very different conclusion: media reports have often cited IBC’s figures in the context of +burying+ the human cost of war.
As numerous studies over many decades have shown, it is quite simply the structural role of the corporate media to defend established power by minimising, as far as possible, public perception of the costs to civilians of US-UK state violence. This role has not suddenly changed in regard to Iraq. On the contrary, media performance on Iraq has been a text book example of a corporate propaganda system acting to protect allied elite interests.
Finally, the danger of moving beyond data collection is emphasised in this comment on IBC’s website in response to media reports of the “surge”:
“Despite any efforts put into the surge, the first six months of 2007 was still the most deadly first six months for civilians of any year since the invasion.” (’The Baghdad “surge” and civilian casualties‘)

This was also highly politicised analysis. IBC’s framing of the issue exactly matches that found in the pro-war Observer:
“Despite the surge, violence remains roughly at the same levels.” (‘Iraq benchmarks,’ The Observer, September 2, 2007)
Imagine what Western journalists would have made of a Soviet organisation observing that a particular period of time had been “the most deadly” for civilians in Afghanistan in the 1980s “despite” a massive surge in Soviet military activity.

And yet this is currently the standard line in mainstream reporting, part of a wider attempt to present the occupation as a well-intentioned effort to achieve peace and democracy, rather than conquest and control.

To their credit, IBC have made an improvement to their website. Their “counter”, which previously recorded “Minimum” and “Maximum” deaths in Iraq, has been changed. Viewed alongside the name Iraq Body Count, visitors were likely to assume that the “Maximum” category referred to the maximum possible number of civilian deaths in Iraq — the full body count — rather than the maximum number of deaths recorded in media reports. The counter now reads:
“Documented civilian deaths from violence 74,432 – 81,120”
IBC comment:
“The change to a simple unlabeled range is intended to help avoid misinterpretation or misrepresentation of these numbers as (for example) the ‘maximum possible’ death toll, or IBC’s ‘estimate’ of it.”

This is a welcome change. However, the very name of the website remains misleading. IBC is, in truth, an Iraq Reported Body Count — nothing more.


Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. The first Media Lens book, Guardians of Power: The Myth Of The Liberal Media, is now available (Pluto Books, London, 2006).

Iraq is Unbreakable. NO PARTITION

All those who support the partition of Iraq participate in the crime of destroying Iraq, its heritage and future.

Any Iraqi who agrees to the partition is a traitor to the nation, its people and its citizens and should be treated as a traitor.

Partition is not a point of view, it is a crime of genocide.

Patriotism today is the refusal of partition and its defeat by all means.

Let us all unite to accomplish this.

Abdul ilah Albayaty

Report: Shortage of cancer treatments puts thousands at risk

Report, IRIN
Oct 4, 2007
BAGHDAD/BASRA (IRIN) - Hospitals specializing in cancer treatment have urged the Iraq authorities to replenish supplies because they say a shortage of essential medicines is putting the lives of thousands of patients at risk.

"Patients are dying from cancer because of a lack of medicines in public hospitals. Private pharmacies are selling the products but at very high prices, which cannot be afforded by poor families," said Ibraheem Muhammad, a senior official at the Cancer Research Centre at the Ministry of Health.

"Indispensable drugs like methotrexate, largely used in breast [cancer], bone [cancer] and in certain cases of leukemia; cyclophosphamide used in lung and breast cancer and lymphomas, as well as vindesine, used in all those cases, are seriously short in all hospitals in Iraq," Muhammad added.

"To make the situation worse for patients, some machines used for radiotherapy are broken, waiting for repairs."According to Muhammad, some wealthier patients are going abroad for treatment when they can get the visas but poor families are desperate as they cannot afford to be treated privately.

"Based on information received at our centre, at least 60 people have died from cancer in Iraq due to a lack of medicines in the past two months. Cancer in some patients can develop very fast if treatment isn't available and if the situation continues, more cases are going to be reported in the coming weeks," he noted.

Black-market dealers
Fua'ad Abdel-Razaq, an oncologist at Cancer Studies Hospital, in the capital, Baghdad, said black-market dealers can be found at hospital doors selling drugs for cancer treatment.

"In addition to the high prices, many of the drugs [sold illicitly] have already expired and desperate families buy them in an attempt to save the lives of their loved ones but thereby put the patients at high risk," Abdel-Razaq added.

The oncologist went on to say that in the past few months some local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) delivered many medicines to his hospital but none was suitable for cancer treatment."We were forced to send all the drugs to other public hospitals because they are not for treating cancer. For example, paracetamol cannot treat the pain of a cancer patient but morphine can, but it isn't available," said Abdel-Razaq.

Doctors at Basra's Maternity and Child Hospital said about 20 new cancer and leukemia cases are reported among children each month. "It pains us to see so many children appearing in our clinics suffering from cancer and especially as we know they will die because they'll not be treated," said Dr Ali Hashimy, an oncologist at the hospital.

"If medicines are available we could save at least 70 percent of them."

This item comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. Reposting or reproduction, with attribution, for non-commercial purposes is permitted. Terms and conditions

THE OIL WAR OF IRAQ

Ilnur Cevik - The New Anatolian / Ankara
03 October 2007
http://www.thenewanatolian.com/tna-29069.html


Iraqi Kurds: We will run our oil industry
Defiant Iraqi Kurds say they are fed up with the delays in the legislation of the oil law in Baghdad and have passed their own hydrocarbons bill and signed agreements with Hunt Oil and Dana Gas

Baghdad : But will I allow you to sell it?
Iraqi government says the deal with Hunt and Dana are null and void and see the Kurdish moves as secessionist. They say KRG has to get Baghdad's approval to sell the oil in world markets.

Ankara: How will you export it abroad?
Turkey says the Iraqi Kurds can extract the oil, develop the fields and may even get permission from Baghdad to sell it but it has to pass through Turkish territory and Ankara's approval is needed.

The defiant Iraqi Kurds are well on the way to develop their oil industry already having legislated their own hydrocarbons law and signing contracts with foreign companies much to the anger of the central government in Baghdad... The Iraqi administration in return asks the Kurds, "you can extract the oil in defiance of the central government, you can develop the oil and gas fields but how will you sell it in the international market without our permission?"

A second question comes from Ankara: How will you export it without my help?

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) passed an oil law in August ahead of the proposed hydrocarbons law being debated in Baghdad. Observers said the KRG was fed up with the delays in the new legislation in Baghdad and wanted to give a message that it will not wait forever for the Iraqi Parliament to get its act together.
The law created anger in Baghdad while the Kurds said the legislation did not violate the Iraqi constitution...Soon after the KRG signed two oil and gas contracts with foreign companies that brought the anger in Baghdad to a boiling point.

First the KRG signed a deal with a company based in the United Arab Emirates, Dana Gas, to develop gas reserves.
Then came the big news when the KRG signed a second production sharing contract with Hunt Oil of Texas which shocked Baghdad.
Iraqi Oil Minister Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, declared the contracts that the Kurds signed null and void while the Kurds called for his resignation.

US opposition
There was speculation that the Hunt deal with KRG has the blessing of Washington as Hunt Oil is know to be a corporate ally of President George W. Bush. However, soon this was denied as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said the controversial deal by the Hunt Oil Co. faces "significant legal uncertainty" and undermines American efforts to strengthen Iraq's national unity.A U.S. official, who insisted on anonymity, warned that Hunt and a handful of small "wildcat" companies that have signed similar deals could find themselves caught in a legal battle between the Iraqi federal government and the northern, semi-independent Kurdistan region."We think that these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) and the government of Iraq , who both share a common interest in the passage of national legislation," the official said, adding that the United States is "pushing all sides to negotiate in good faith and knock off the things that undermine national unity."

The U.S. State Department recently said Iraq's national oil law will superseded Hunt Oil's deal with the KRG."While the Kurdistan regional government has passed its own oil law and is proceeding to operate under the terms of that, it's important to note that that regional law will be superseded by what we hope to see soon, which is a national Iraqi oil law," Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said in a briefing to reporters."

I'm not sure exactly how helpful it is for either any individual corporate entity or the Kurdistan regional government to be proceeding to make deals and contracts under an arrangement that in fact may be changed, and I expect will likely - probably - be changed as a result of overarching national legislation," Casey said.

"These kinds of contracts don't contribute to a resolution that is in the best interest of the Iraqi people and they do elevate tensions between the Kurdish regional government and the government of Iraq. And to the extent that they detract from an ability to get a national oil law completed...aren't particularly helpful," Casey said.

U.S. sources say other U.S and foreign companies have asked the State Department for advice about whether to negotiate deals with the KRG and have decided against doing so after they were told there might be legal problems. Hunt's deal also has come under fire in the U.S. Congress, where Rep. Dennis Kucinich , an Ohio Democrat and presidential candidate, has called for an investigation and highlighted the ties between the Bush administration and company Chairman Ray L. Hunt .

Hunt is a director of Halliburton , where Vice President Dick Cheney once served as president, was a key fundraiser for President Bush and serves on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board .

But defiant Iraqi Kurdish leaders say security issues have hampered the production and transport of oil elsewhere in Iraq and increasing exports from the north would benefit everyone.

*****Baghdad pressures KRG
But Oil Minister Shahristani does not agree. He believes some kind of Kurdish declaration of independence can be read into the move. "This to us indicates very serious lack of cooperation that makes many people wonder if they are really going to be working within the framework of the federal law," Shahristani said in a recent interview, before even the Hunt deal was announced.

Baghdad has changed tactics in recent weeks not emphasizing the illegality of the KRG oil and gas deals but saying they need the approval of the central government if the Kurds are to sell the oil and gas abroad.

Shahristani has said the gas and oil should be sold by the state company SOMO. There are also rumors that Baghdad is putting on the squeeze on the KRG by slowing the flow of funds to the Kurdish areas thus creating a financial crisis in the region.

*****The Turkish factor
So while Baghdad asks the Kurds "how will you sell your oil in the international markets if I do not give permission?" the other question remains "even if you extract the oil and Baghdad approves this how will you export it through Turkey if Turks do not carry it through the Ceyhan pipeline?"

Turkey holds the key to the export of the oil that will be eventually produced in the Kurdish regions. However, the cool relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds poses a major obstacle. Kurds have voiced hope in the past that they would build pipelines from their oil fields into the Iraqi pipeline network that carries Kirkuk oil to the Turkish Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan.

Some key Turkish state officials which include military leaders believe oil revenues will further embolden the Kurds and encourage them to declare an independent state. Turkish Chief of Staff General Yasar Buykanit warned on Monday that an independent Kurdish entity in northern Iraq will not only pose political problem for Turkey but would create a security risk.

Irakezen grootste asielaanvragers in Europa

donderdag 04 oktober 2007 Bron: afp/belga
http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=DMF04102007_030


PARIJS/BRUSSEL - Hoewel ze slechts een kleine minderheid uitmaken van de twee miljoen landgenoten die de oorlog in hun land ontvlucht zijn, vormen Irakezen de grootste groep asielaanvragers in Europa.

Ook in België zijn er veel Iraakse kandidaat-vluchtelingen, maar ze worden voorafgegaan door Russen en Serviërs, zo blijkt uit statistieken.

In 2006 vroegen 19.240 Irakezen asiel aan in landen van de Europese Unie, zo meldt de Vluchtelingenorganisatie van de Verenigde Naties (UNHCR). In het eerste semester van dit jaar waren er al 20.000 Iraakse asielaanvragers. Daarmee wippen de Irakezen over de Serviërs.

De hoofdreden die Irakezen opgeven om naar Europa te komen, is familiehereniging. Velen komen ook illegaal de EU binnen.
De meeste Irakezen vragen asiel aan in Zweden: in de eerste zeven maanden van 2007 waren dat er 10.800, van wie 74 procent aanvaard werd.

In Zweden vormen de Irakezen de op een na grootste etnische groep, op de Finnen na. In februari luidde Zweden de alarmbel en riep de EU-landen op Irakezen voorrang te geven bij asielaanvragen.

In België vroegen tijdens de eerste zeven maanden van 2007 607 Irakezen asiel aan, zo blijkt uit cijfers van de Dienst Vreemdelingenzaken. Alleen Russen (981) en Serviërs (940) waren talrijker.
svh

'United we stand'

Plans to partition Iraq are causing a political earthquake, says Nermeen Al-Mufti

The Iraqi parliament is expected to reject a non-binding US senate measure calling for the country to be divided along sectarian lines into three parts. The measure, championed by democratic senator and presidential hopeful Joseph Biden, has finally managed to unify the Iraqis if only in opposition to it, with the exception, of course, of the Kurds.

Kurdish leaders called the measure a perfect solution to the country's multi-faceted problems. "The people and government of Iraq Kurdistan welcome the US Senate's decision to rebuild the Iraqi state on a federal basis, and finds this decision to be in harmony with the Iraq constitution," said the official website of the Kurdish northern government.

Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki lashed out at the Senate's decision. He told Al-Iraqiya television that, "those people who passed the measure should stand by Iraq and reinforce its unity and sovereignty instead of proposing a partition, which would be catastrophic not only for Iraq but for the entire region."

Ezzat Al-Shahbandar, deputy for the Iraqi List, read out a joint statement released by various Iraqi groups at a news conference. The statement said that the US Senate relied on an "unrealistic assessment of Iraq's past, present, and future." The Senate's measure, the statement added, "conflicts with international laws and the right of nations for self determination, and is in breach of the Iraqi constitution that guarantees the unity of Iraq."

The statement was signed by the Shia Iraqi Alliance Block, the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, the Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi, the Sunni National Dialogue List of Saleh Al-Mutalek, the Iraqi Turkoman Front, and other prominent figures.

Sheikh Abdul-Mahdi Al-Karbalaei, a top aid of Ayatollah Al-Sistani, said that, "those who proposed the measure claim that it is the best way of getting Iraq out of the current chaos, but it is not in the interests of this country. I call on all Iraqi officials, parties, civil society groups, and religious and cultural institutions to ditch any plan aiming to divide Iraq along sectarian or ethnic lines."

The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars denounced the partitioning plan, calling on the international community and the Islamic world to stand against it. "The measure comes as no surprise. The US senate aims to partition the country under the guise of federalism [to satisfy] a certain wing within the current US administration and the Zionist lobby."

Although Shia leaders in the past demanded their own region in the south, they all rejected the decision, saying that the federalism they wanted didn't have any ethnic or sectarian connotations.

Torhan Al-Mufti, a key figure within the Turkoman Bloc, voiced opposition to the measure, warning that the Turkoman would ask for their own region should the country be partitioned. "The Turkoman Front is against the partitioning of Iraq, but if -- God forbid -- such partition took place, then it would be the right of all Iraqi people to demand their legitimate rights," he said.

Political activist Abir Ali, who is opposed to the US occupation, warned of the long-term implications of the scheme. "Let's keep in mind that the US Congress adopted in 1998 a non-binding decision calling for the invasion of Iraq. The US administration later on relied on that decision to invade our country."

Abu Hassan, a man known for his close connections with the Iraqi resistance, promised to undermine any attempt at partitioning. "The resistance is not going to allow the partitioning of Iraq. We will nip this scheme in the bud."

A classified US document accused Prime Minister Al-Maliki of resisting the formation of an independent agency to investigate corruption in the country. According to Radio Sawa, the US Embassy in Baghdad drafted a paper criticising the government for failing to stamp out corruption. The US Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, Iraqi local press cited officials at the Iraqi Probity Agency as saying that Al-Maliki's office obstructed the referral of Iraqi ministers and key officials for investigation of corruption charges.

The parliament has also to decide on the terms under which the mandate for the multinational forces would be extended till the end of 2008. According to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labid Abbawi, the extension would be the last one to be granted for the coalition forces, totalling 160,000 troops." After that, Iraq would seek a long-term security agreement with the US to meet the country's security needs, Abbawi said.

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