Mehdi Hasan

Mehdi Hasan’s polemical take on politics, economics and foreign affairs

David Aaronovitch's Iraq omission

Why does the pro-war left gloss over the issue of Iraqi civilian deaths?

By Mehdi Hasan Published 12 March 2010 20:12

I like David Aaronovitch. He is one of our country's leading liberal voices, a brilliant, intelligent and passionate writer and a nice man. He and I agree on a lot. (You can watch us here debating together at the Cambridge Union in defence of political correctness -- our side won!) But he is wrong about Iraq. He always has been.

I hesitate before taking a pot shot at Aaronovitch because I did so only a few weeks ago, in a column on torture (and he emailed to point out that he had been the first to flag up the Jack Bauer angle). Nonetheless, in the language of the playground, "he started it", so I'll respond.

In his column in the Times on Tuesday, Aaronovitch ridicules those of us who opposed the war, calls the Iraqi elections a "bloody miracle" and deplores seven years of "goddamned" discussion of WMDs, legality, and so on. Time to move on, says Aaro.

Let me begin by highlighting some points on which he and I agree.

1) It is both miraculous and inspiring that Iraq is able to conduct multiparty parliamentary elections seven years on from the fall of Saddam Hussein.

2) Torture was indeed much, much worse and more widespread under Saddam Hussein than it is in Iraq today.

3) There has never been a proper debate about what would have happened to Iraq if Saddam Hussein had been left in power in 2003. What were the alternatives, if any?

But in Aaronovitch's column, entitled "Iraq has moved forward. It's time we did, too", there is a glaring omission. How many Iraqis died in order to build this new Mesopotamian democracy, what he calls "one of the most hopeful changes in recent times"? Or, to rephrase the question, how many Iraqis were unable to vote in these historic elections because they'd been killed in the period since March 2003?

He does make one passing reference to the death and destruction inflicted by the invaders and the insurgents in Iraq:

In the first place it has made it almost impossible to discuss the Iraqis themselves, to consult them or listen to them. They have become ghosts, invoked as (implausible) casualty figures, or seen on TV briefly lamenting a death or maiming.

"Ghosts" is an interesting choice of word. But I'm confused. Does he think casualty figures are not important, or that they are all "implausible"? Does he, like General Tommy Franks, not "do bodycounts"? Or can he tell us how many Iraqis he thinks have been killed in the violence unleashed by our illegal (yes, David, illegal) invasion in 2003? If not, how can he expect us to "move on"? How can we do a proper audit of the war?

Nobody knows for sure how many Iraqis died, or were killed, as a result of the invasion, but there are several different, credible and respected estimates, ranging from 100,000 to a million-plus.

There's Iraq Body Count:

95,593 to 104,291

There's the calculation by Associated Press:

more than 110,600

There's the Lancet survey:

601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths

There's the ORB survey:

1,033,000

Which one does Aaronovitch agree with? Any of them? None of them?

On a side note, I smiled to see Aaronovitch smear those of us in the "anti-war brigade" as "Shortists". But, of course, Clare Short did not oppose the Iraq war. She voted for it, and stayed in the cabinet, resigning only after the invasion had occurred.

He could have called us "Cookists" or "Denhamists", but he chose not to. Perhaps because it is much more difficult to dismiss Robin Cook and John Denham as naive peaceniks, Islamist appeasers or Saddam apologists than it is to dismiss Clare Short, George Galloway, Tony Benn or the rest of the usual suspects. I'm just wondering . . .

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26 comments

Fri, 2010-03-12 23:24 — Pierre

The West sees the Arabs as disposable,if there was no oil or need for leverage they [the west]does not care a fig.

Sat, 2010-03-20 18:16 — 2yyiam1

I'm sorry Stan, you can't justify it that way. Regardless of the atrocities committed by Saddam and his cronies, in the years leading up to the invasion in 2003 there weren't as many deaths as there have been since the invasion.

If we're going to head down that path, then surely we should be intervening everywhere else where there is gross human rights violation: Sudan, Zimbabwe etc.

I agree that the insurgents should "bear the greatest responsibility," but let's not forget that it was a direct result of the invasion that has led to the insurgents' devastation.

Sat, 2010-03-13 00:06 — Ian M (not verified)

Whatever you think of David Aaronovitch I fail to see how you can describe as in any way 'left'. He may have been at one time, I have no idea, but is now a classic centre right part of the commentariat (ie those who see it as their job to lecture us incessantly, with little research or journalistic hard work to back up their prejudices). In other words, I fail to see why his opinions are important in any way - opinions are two a penny, it seldom makes them any better if they are published in a right wing newspaper. In fact it often makes them worse.

Sat, 2010-03-13 09:14 — David Wearing1

Another death toll worth remembering is the estimated (by Unicef) 1,000,000 Iraqis who died as a result of the sanctions regime supported by the US and UK, half of them infant children. It is also worth recalling that Saddam committed most of his worst atrocities while an ally of Britain and the US. These inconveniant facts do rather undermine the notion of London and Washington as "humanitarian intervenors", driven by the noble desire to save Iraq from tyranny. The fact that so many people - left and right, pro and anti-war - bought into that absurd idea tells us a good deal about the quality of our political culture.

Sat, 2010-03-13 11:36 — homo ludens

With regard to Iraqi 'democracy' the miracle is that any kind of functioning Government should result at all [from an American-authored electoral process that few in the West would tolerate and that seems guaranteed to result in a sort of chaotic paralysis of governmental indecision]. Even the Beeb's John Simpson generously endowed with a sanguine outlook on most things has this to say on the recent election:

"Nevertheless, the system of democracy with which Iraq has been lumbered scarcely helps this process.
A single glance at the ballot paper shows how unwieldy and awkward it is: there are more than 6,000 candidates, from more than 80 parties, chasing a mere 325 parliamentary seats."

Baathists and anyone with a tenuous link to Baathists have also been excluded - that is those with any link to 'saddam's Baath Party'.

The Baath Party however does not belong to Saddam Hussein. Here is the wiki entry:

"The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (also spelled Ba'th or Baath which means "resurrection or renaissance"; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي‎) is a secularist Arab nationalism/Pan-Arabism political party opposed to Western imperialism and calling for the "renaissance" or "resurrection" of the Arab World and its unity in one united state.[1] Its motto is "Unity, Liberty, Socialism" (wahda, hurriya, ishtirakiya) — unity refering to Arab unity, liberty to freedom from non-Arab control and interference, and socialism refers to Arab socialism rather than to European socialism, or communism.
The party was founded in Damascus, Syria in 1940 by the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq, and Salah al-Bitar, as a secular, socialist Arab nationalist movement. Since its inception, it established branches in different Arab countries, but has only ever been in power in Syria and Iraq. The Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria on 8 March 1963 and has held a monopoly on political power since. Ba'athists also seized power in Iraq in 1963, but were later deposed by the Iraqi military. They re-gained power via a coup d'etat in July 1968, and remained the sole party of government until the 2003 Iraq invasion after which it was banned."

Sat, 2010-03-13 14:12 — vanrisszcu

John R - thanks for your comments and links. You and I are not going to agree on either the death toll or the legality, are we? And I'm not sure you have "gone on about Iraqi death...at length" - where is the regret? where is the concern for the loss of life? where is the sense of moral responsibility for "collateral damage"? where is the acknowledgement that "freedom" for the Iraqis came at a high price for those same Iraqis?

As for your critique of the Lancet report, I think I'm going to go with the verdict of the tried and tested (and conservative) methods of the world experts at the John Hopkins School of Public Health, peer-reviewed in the Lancet, over the objections of the Independent newspaper's chief political columnist. Here's Lila Giterman writing on the first Lancet report in the Columbia Journalim Review: "I called about ten biostatisticians and mortality experts. Not one of them took issue with the study’s methods or its conclusions. If anything, the scientists told me, the authors had been cautious in their estimates."

Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."
In a letter to The Age, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously." "Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston. Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology in the University of Oxford, described the 2006 report as "statistically valid" in an interview on BBC television.

But John, tell me this, how many people do you think were killed in Iraq? None? How many deaths did the coalition cause, in particulr?

As for legality, can you produce a single respected international lawyer in this country, not linked the government, who thinks the war was legal? Even Christopher Greenwood, I undestood, is now said to have his doubts. But legality is a red herring: even had the UN Security Council approved the invasion, I still would have opposed the war and I still would have been vindicated by the lack of WMDs and the huge and tragic death toll.

Sat, 2010-03-13 18:59 — stevem1

Neither Aaronavitch or Rentoul are on the left these days. Like NuLab they have moved not to the centre right but to the full blown right. like NuLab their aim is to break the left for a generation.

Mon, 2010-03-22 05:41 — Erik S (not verified)

Funny that everyone seems to discuss legality but I haven't heard anyone discuss the concept that we went into Iraq because of their aggression, that they were an openly terrorist state (undeniable, openly paid terrorists' families for suicide bombing missions against Israel) and that honestly, we never left. The U.N. occupied their air space throughout the time between the Gulf War and the final overthrow of the Hussein regime. Our planes that patrolled the Northern and Southern "No-fly" zones were fired upon daily. The treaty that suspended the Persian Gulf War, that was agreed to by Hussein put the onus upon Iraq to disclose and prove that they were not developing or sustaining the ability to possess WMD's. By all accounts, they failed to do that. The most recent war should have been and would have been a U.N mission had it not been for the corrupted French government. They and they alone (not the Chinese nor the Russians) vetoed the authorization that had overwhelming security council support. Even in doing so (and having a relationship with Suddam Hussein), the French government could not make the claim that Iraq did not possess WMD's. Neither could Hans Blix or the weapons inspection teams. Tony Blair is a hero, as is George W. Bush for their work in the Middle East. That is how they will be viewed in the decades to come. Sorry.

Mon, 2010-03-22 14:14 — Stan Rosenthal1

How refreshing to see another pro-war comment on this thread. Erik has got it absolutely right and shows up the fatuous nature of many of the other comments e.g. the come-back by 2yyiam on my earlier contribution.

We went into Iraq (as opposed to the other failing states he names) because Saddam gave us the opportunity (by not complying with those resolutions) to remove him through the United Nations.

As regards the downside to the invasion 2yyiam has once again ignored the consequences of leaving Saddam and his sons in place. The Iraqis themselves seem to have been well aware of these consequences since, as I have shown elsewhere at this site, polls taken in Iraq have indicated that a good majority supported the overthrow of Saddam despite the hardships entailed.

Sun, 2010-03-14 12:36 — David Wearing1

Mehdi - in your response to JR you make one important omission. Even the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6495753.stm

The liberal-bombers' professed concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people does not sit easily with cackhanded attempts to rubbish the most scientifically reliable estimates of the death toll in that country - the death toll, btw, from a war we started.

Mon, 2010-03-15 03:55 — Bobby_1

Mehdi, I think you are too positive about what has been achieved.

What about the destruction of the health and education system and infrastructure? Fallujah? The pervasive corruption? Yes there are elections, but is there real democracy over decisions to do with natural resources, such as oil? The Kurdish question is still unresolved and could well unleash another wave of violence (although this would probably be the case if Saddam had fallen at the hands of Iraqis).

Mon, 2010-03-15 09:15 — vanrisszcu

David and Bobby - I agree with both of you.

Mon, 2010-03-15 10:40 — Tim Mann

The statistics that matter at the moment are the (on average) 100 violent deaths a month in Baghdad alone even now. As John Pilger says, such statistics don't matter to the war sympathisers. Absolutely anything was worth it to get rid of Saddam, they say. They are blind to all other considerations.

Mon, 2010-03-15 11:14 — writeoff (not verified)

I though the Lancet study used the same methodology as estimates for the Rwandan genocide. The Govt. tellingly don't seek to deny that one. As said above, the long term impact of destroyed infrastructure and the poverty is has come with, will continue to add hugely to the toll. Throw in depleted uranium radiation and god knows what and yes, we'll never get a real figure, but the Lancet may have been very modest.

Tue, 2010-03-23 01:07 — kingfelix

"He is one of our country's leading liberal voices, a brilliant, intelligent and passionate writer and a nice man."

If Aaronovitch is a liberal then the term needs to be discontinued forthwith.

Perhaps you meant neoliberal, which is not at all the same thing.

Tue, 2010-03-16 12:31 — homo ludens

writeoff;

In the course of examining some of the details concerning Paul Kagame's rise to power in Rwanda I became aware of some statistical anomalies concerning the demographics before and after the Genocide. In order to seek some clarification I emailed Dr Les Roberts concerning the much talked about Lancet report concerning the mortality rates during the Genocide. You can imagine how astounded I was to discover that no such study had been undertaken and moreover Dr Roberts knew of no such credible report as ever having taken place. There was however a report conducted into the mortality rates that took place during the Congolese conflicts of the 1990s - this was put a figure of between 3 and 4 million deaths. This was conducted by the same team using the same methodology as the Iraq study.

Why this particular misperception has spread so widely in the mainstream media is perhaps a matter worthy of further pondering...

Wed, 2010-03-24 12:36 — Stan Rosenthal1

My dictionary defines liberal as "having social and political opinions that favour progress and reform: generous in temperament and behaviour".

I think this definition generally applies to Aaronovitch. Not sure whether it applies to the anti-Iraq war liberals though given their opposition to removing Saddam from power and their vilification of Tony Blair.

Fri, 2010-03-26 01:53 — kingfelix

My dictionary defines liberal as "having social and political opinions that favour progress and reform: generous in temperament and behaviour".

I think this definition generally applies to Aaronovitch.

Mr Rosenthal, you literally have no clue what you are talking about. The problem was moving from 'your dictionary' to your application of what you found to 'David Aaronovitch'

Ideology supervened. Shame.

Fri, 2010-03-19 14:56 — Stan Rosenthal1

To support their case the anti-war lobby always quote the highest
possible number of civilian casualties.

In fact, estimates quoted in Wikipedia range from the 50,000 of the Iraq Body Count project to the 655,000 of the second Lancet survey of mortality. As Wikipedia points out the differences reflect differing
methodologies as well as differing definitions of the types of deaths counted. In particular the Lancet study from which the higher estimates are taken includes noncivilians and deaths due to degraded infra-structure and poor health care. There is also
the difficulty of distinguishing between civilian and insurgent deaths since it is in the
nature of this type of warfare for the combatants to melt into the civilian population during and in between battles.

And in the case of genuine civilian deaths, there can be little doubt that a large proportion of them has been caused by those who DELIBERATELY target mosques, market places, and apartment blocks (as was the case during the recent election).

Where the deaths resulted from actions carried out by coalition troops who is to say who is responsible when insurgents operated from densely built-up areas, in effect using civilians as human shields?

As for Hasan's certainty about the illegality of the Iraq war there is no certainty in this fairly new and "ragbag" area of the law. Accordingly a challenge to the Attorney- General's advice does not constitute proof of illegality, whether it comes from another lawyer or the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

I am suprised that a journalist of Hasan's standing should be so wrong about the main components of his story.

Fri, 2010-03-19 18:08 — 2yyiam1

Stan you seem to completely miss the point!!! Civilian deaths have occurred as a result of the coalition invasion - whether by the coalition themselves or by insurgents attacks. Both causes are linked back to the invasion - whatever the estimate of numbers, the fact that people are willing to just overlook these deaths is shocking.

Fri, 2010-03-19 19:42 — Stan Rosenthal1

2yyiam, people are not willing to just overlook the civilian deaths in Iraq. Those, like myself, who were in favour of the war have been sickened by the civilian casualties involved.

Where we differ is about who should take the blame for them. Undoubtedly it is the insurgents who must bear the greatest responsibilty for the mayhem.. If the coalition got something wrong it was in underestimating the sheer depravity of an enemy directing their weapons at the softest of targets which are almost impossible to defend

And it should always be remembered that without the invasion Saddam and his psychopathic sons would have been free to continue their atrocities against their own people, with scarcely a murmer of protest from the liberal-left.

Sat, 2010-03-27 00:26 — marphy

Holiday in Iraq

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/hitchens200704

Sat, 2010-03-27 03:35 — scampy

will the newly elected Iraqi PM sign up to the international criminal court or will they be stopped from doing so by the peace loving Americans?
Let us remember that the chief prosecutor at the ICC said in the past that if Iraq were to become a signed up member Bush and Blair could face war crimes charges.
Blair has used his failed role as UN mid east envoy to hold off the war crimes charges for the time being but must eventually face trial

Fri, 2010-03-12 20:51 — Gloria Spicer (not verified)

David Aaronovitch is not a nice man. He is not brilliant, passionate or a 'leading liberal voice.' He is a self appointed expert on innumberable subjects, pompous, ignorant and bigoted. His support of Blair's massacre in Iraq is inexcusable on all levels.