REP. KUCINICH....."We are rapidly approaching the grave number of 3,000 dead U.S. service members. But as painful as that is -- and it's very painful -- the estimated 650,000 deaths attributed to hostilities in Iraq is an overwhelming number to comprehend. While it is natural and appropriate for Americans to first focus upon the deaths of American service members in Iraq, it's astounding to consider that for every service member killed, 200 Iraq civilians have been killed.
According to the United Nations, the population of Iraq was 25 million in 2003, and we have now learned that since then, an estimated 650,000 have perished to violence. Now, if such a rate of violence were to be inflicted against the U.S., we would have lost about 7.8 million Americans. Such a level of violence is unimaginable, but this is the level of violence that the civilians in Iraq are subjected to.
Consider the massive psychological impact the 9/11 attacks and resulting deaths have had on our nation. Imagine the impact we'd feel as a nation if, over a period of three years, 7.8 million of our citizens died in ongoing, uncontrollable violence. Consider the political impact of violence at that scale. Are we closer to a stable transition in Iraq, or are we closer to collapse? How would we react if this was happening here?..........
.......Dr. Gilbert Burnham....Interestingly, the Iraqi minister of Health had been supporting this 40,000 to 50,000 death estimate until our study came out, and he changed it to perhaps 100,000 to 150,000 the week our study came out.
And since then, he's been quoted by AP as saying more like 150,000, not the 600,000 reported in the Lancet. He tripled his estimate as a result of our study coming out. Can anyone pretend the Iraqi minister of health really knows?....
Dr. Les Roberts....As a nation of information excellence it is, I think, beneath our dignity and, I hope, not in keeping with the compassion of the American people to have U.S. government officials consistently downplaying the number of dead in Iraq by a factor of 10 and 15....
Juan Cole....For instance, security clearly collapsed in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra, population 1.3 million, in spring of 2006. Iraqi officials maintained in April that for the previous month, one Iraqi had been assassinated each hour. This is in the city of Basra, one city.
These -- some 750 deaths had gone completely unreported in both the Iraqi and the Western press. If you go back and do a Lexis search for Basra in March and April of 2006, you won't see any deaths reported at all there....
REP. KUCINICH....First question: Are these methods standard for use in war zones and conflict situations?
DR. BURNHAM: What I'd like to say first is that these have been developed with U.S. government assistance, and they have been widely used. They were used in Eastern Congo to assess mortality there, in Bosnia. They were used in Kosovo. They've been used in Darfur. And with each of these uses, we learn a little bit more about the methodologies and potential limitations in conflict situations, and so each one builds on the previous one.....
.....REP. KUCINICH: Before we get a response from Dr. Roberts, you said that they were developed with U.S. government assistance, these sampling methods. Do you want to elaborate on that?
DR. BURNHAM: Yes. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta was one of the first groups to start using this method, initially to look at immunization coverage. Subsequently, there is a group that has received U.S. government support, as well as U.N. and Canadian support, looking at developing these for -- specifically for conflict situation. And they have a website called www.smartindicators.org, I believe. Yes. And so there's a lot of details on how this has been further refined on that.
Then the surveys that are done for health status in developing countries, called demographic and health surveys, which are our main source of information on many parts of the world, all use this same type of methodology.....
REP. KUCINICH....Now, Dr. Roberts, do you want to respond to questions relating to the methodology, you know, as a standard for use in war zones and conflict situations?
MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, I just want to make two quick comments.
And the first is this is how the U.S. government estimated the death toll after the war in Kosovo. This is how the U.S. government measured mortality in Afghanistan after our 2001 invasion. This is the standard way. This was done -- the first time I ever did this was as an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. So this is, yes, the standard way....
......REP. KUCINICH: Well, let's go over this, then.
So this methodology has been used by the U.S. government, the Canadian government and U.N. agencies, and it has supported similar methodology in Kosovo, Darfur?
MR. ROBERTS: A similar method was used in Darfur, but not by the U.S. government -- although the president has cited results from Darfur from a similar method, yes.
REP. KUCINICH: What about Angola?
MR. ROBERTS: No. Afghanistan was the other place the U.S. government used this sort of cluster mortality survey to estimate the death rate.
REP. KUCINICH: Okay. So you're saying used the same methods in Kosovo and Afghanistan?
appeasement and ignoring the problem is a great recruiting tool (9/11). Hate recruits people as we can see by the Democratic party. All they had to do was hate, no solutions, and it got them some wins.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
