16th November 2006

The recent motion in parliament demanding an inquiry into the Iraq war was lost by 25 votes. Incredibly only 12 Labour MPs supported the call for an inquiry. David Drew was not amongst them. Was this a case of putting party loyalty over the interests of the people of Iraq and the vast majority of people in this country?

This was the first full debate in over two years on the war that the has cost the lives of as many as 650,000 Iraqi civilians and 120 British soldiers (i). Polls have consistently shown that a large majority of people in Britain both oppose the war and want the troops brought home. Indeed some of the strongest expressions against the war have been in Stroud.

There surely cannot be a more serious moment for democratic scrutiny than when a government is involved in a controversial and dangerous foreign war. Neither the Hutton nor Butler Inquiries addressed the question about whether the Parliament and country were misled into this bloody conflict. It is essential for the credibility of our democracy that we establish what has led us down this fateful path.

Cllr. Philip Booth, Stroud District Green party,

Stroud District councillor for the Randwick, Ruscombe and Whiteshill ward,

Note:

(i) The Lancet medical journal's 'Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey.' This study was led by Gilbert Burnham of the prestigious Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. The survey itself was conducted by eight Iraqi doctors led by Riyadh Lafta of Al Mustansiriya University, Baghdad. The doctors collected data from 1,849 households comprising 12,801 individuals in 47 population clusters across Iraq. The survey findings were staggering:  "We estimate that, as a consequence of the coalition invasion of March 18, 2003, about 655 000 Iraqis have died above the number that would be expected in a non-conflict situation, which is equivalent to about 2·5% of the population in the study area. About 601 000 of these excess deaths were due to violent causes. Our estimate of the post-invasion crude mortality rate represents a doubling of the baseline mortality rate, which... constitutes a humanitarian emergency."

See: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf)

The scientists estimate that the most probable number of excess deaths is 654,965. They also estimate, with 95 per cent certainty, that the actual number lies between 392,979 and 942,636. It is important to note that the standard figure for Iraqi deaths offered by the mainstream media is that supplied by Iraq Body Count (IBC). At time of writing, the "maximum" IBC figure stands at 48,783. There has long been great confusion among journalists about exactly what this figure represents. Many believe it describes the maximum possible total of Iraqi dead, or of all Iraqi civilians killed. In fact it is the figure solely for Iraqi civilian victims of violence as reported by at least two (mostly Western) media as selected by IBC for use in their study.

Read more about the reporting of this figure at Media Lens. It is important to note this figure has not been discredited by scientists, indeed the techniques used are widely seen as the highest standards and best way to carry out this reasearch:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/061018_democracy_and_debate.php