Collateral damage is the chilly, some would say Orwellian, bureaucratic term for the unintended consequences of war. Especially civilian injuries and deaths. The ethical problem is that while such injuries and deaths may be unintended, they certainly are not unexpected. In fact, they’re utterly certain, especially in aerial bombardment and urban warfare such as we leveled against Iraq.
Now that the dust is settling, several groups are trying to determine the extent of civilian deaths. It is unlikely that there will ever be an accurate count, but those trying to add up the dead estimate that the total may go as high as 10,000.
A lone peace activist from the Bay Area, Marla Ruzicka, 26, has organized some 150 surveyors to help her non-profit organization, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC, complete a tally. The surveyors go door-to-door in areas where there was heavy fighting. So far, they have documented 2,401 deaths, which Ruzicka says is a preliminary total.
"Somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 people died in this conflict," Ruzicka said.
That estimate is seconded by investigators for Iraq Body Count, which has constructed a detailed database of civilian casualties, organized by incident, that can be viewed at their site. The IBC site now estimates that between 5,534 and 7,207 civilians died.
"The totality is now producing an unassailable sense that there were a hell of a lot of civilian deaths in Iraq," says John Sloboda, a professor and one of IBC’s report authors.
Getting a count that is as close to accurate as possible is important, in part, because Congress has appropriated compensation for civilian victims and their families.
Some may suspect the counts of both Ruzicka and Iraq Body Count, since both opposed the war.
That can’t be said of the Associated Press, the U.S. news agency, which concluded after surveying Iraqi hospitals that at least 3,240 civilians died. It called its own survey fragmentary and incomplete and said the final number was bound to be higher.
The various counts may provide information that could help lower civilian casualties in the future, and should help the families of many victims get compensation. But addition of the dead does not address the ethical and moral issues raised by the war.
Robert Higgs, a senior fellow at the conservative/libertarian Independent Institute, argues that, “Nobody can gain moral absolution merely by re-labeling his killing spree a ‘war’: it’s not a morally valid way out for you and me, and it’s not a morally valid way out for George Bush, either.”
More threats from Saddam?
Saddam Hussein has threatened more violence against the U.S. and its allies in a letter purportedly signed by the dictator and faxed to an Arab-language newspaper in London.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, said the handwriting and signature appeared to be the same as those on other Saddam faxes sent since the war.
So where is Saddam, anyway?
Atwan said he had no idea where the letter was faxed from. In recent weeks, Saddam has variously been reported to be living in a) the Baghdad suburbs, where he commandeers houses and holds their owners hostage until he feels it’s time to move to a new location, then supposedly gives them a substantial sum for their services, b) in the area northeast of Baghdad where U.S. troops have conducted military sweeps intended to root out pockets of his remaining supporters or 3) in Libya.
Here, Time reports how Saddam apparently used other people’s homes before Baghdad fell.
And, of course, it’s always possible that Saddam is dead, though there’s no evidence of this. Either way, the U.S. would like to know.
''I would obviously much prefer that we had clear evidence that Saddam is dead or that we had him alive in our custody,'' Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator in postwar Iraq, told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
''I think it does make a difference because it allows the Baathists to go around in the bazaars and in the villages, which they're doing, saying, 'Saddam is alive, and he's going to come back, and we're going to come back.' ''
Bush has a rude encounter with a Segway
This incident qualifies as an accident only because it involved George Bush, who tumbled off a Segway scooter. He was unhurt.
Back to top