Paying the price of occupation

by Michael Jansen

The Associated Press report that 5,558 Iraqi civilians have died since President George Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1, 2003, reveals why 80 per cent of the citizens of that country consider the US to be an occupying power and not a liberator and insist that Washington must pull out its administrators and troops as soon as possible.

This figure, compiled from morgue statistics from all but three provincial facilities, covers the number of Iraqis killed by criminals and in occupation-related violence, but excludes Iraqis slain by bombs and bombers, Iraqis buried without their deaths being recorded at morgues, and Iraqis killed in the conflicts in Fallujah, Najaf, Karbala and Kufa.

These unrecorded fatalities must be counted in the thousands. The figure for the April rising in Fallujah alone is 731, according to hospital sources.

Civilian deaths occur every day in the US campaign to subjugate the south. If one adds another couple of thousand, to account for all those excluded from the morgue reports, the death toll during the first year of the US occupation approaches and even exceeds the annual average of deaths during the 35 years of Baath Party rule, excepting the fatalities during Iraq's three wars. Under the Baath, the annual fatality figure was 8,571, based on an estimate of 300,000 Iraqis killed for the entire period.

Some analysts put the figure higher, others lower. Then, as now, the central authorities in Baghdad faced revolts from various sectors of the populace.

Amnesty International estimates that 10,000 Iraqis have been slain since the US war ended. The number of homicides in the US over three years are as follows: 2002, 13,561; 2001, 11,982; and 2000, 12,291. Since the population of Iraq is only 27 million, while the US population is 293,332,177, the homicide rate in Iraq is ten times that in the US.

However, there is a major difference between the era of Baathist rule and under the US occupation. The majority of today's deaths are due to the lack of security and the collapse of law and order. Ever since the US and British armies invaded and occupied their country, Iraqis have not been safe in their homes, in the streets, and at their work places (if they have jobs at a time of 40-60 per cent unemployment, depending on where they live).

Take Baghdad, for instance, a city of 5.6 million. Last year, there were 4,279 recorded civilian deaths, an average of 357 a month. In 2002, under the Baath, there were 14 a month. Thus, the homicide rate in the Iraqi capital is now 76 killings per 1,000. This is one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world. The Associated Press said that Bogota, Colombia, had a homicide rate of 39 killings per 1,000. This high figure, nearly half the Iraqi rate, is clearly drug related. New York City's rate is 7.5 per 1,000. The US national rate is 2.16 and that of Jordan is 2.4 per cent.

The Associated Press breakdown is even more shocking when areas outside the capital are considered. In Karbala governorate, with a population of 1.5 million, the figure for May 1, 2003-April 30, 2004, is 663 Iraqis killed, an average of 55 a month. In 2002, there was only one monthly fatality on average. In Tikrit governorate, with 650,000 people, there were 205 deaths in this period, 17 a month; in 2002 there were no homicides. Finally, in Kirkuk, with 1.5 million people, 401 were killed, 34 a month, while during 2002 the figure was three a month.

The homicides during the May 1, 2003-April 30, 2004, period must be added to the figure put forward by The Associated Press for civilian casualties during the conflict itself. This is 3,240 from March 20 to April 20, 2003.

If one adds the Amnesty International figure for war deaths, 3,240, the toll taken amongst Iraqi civilians rises to 13,240.

The collapse of Iraq's domestic security was caused by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's doctrine of "occupation lite". Well before the war, he decided that the US would not need to deploy more than 100,000 troops to provide security in Iraq after the toppling of the Baathist government. He, optimistically, predicted that only 30,000 US troops would remain after September 2003. This was a gross underestimate. At present, the US is maintaining its deployment at 135,000 and there is pressure on Washington to increase the number of troops in Iraq. British and other foreign troops total 19,000-odd.

Military analysts argue that an occupying power must deploy 20 troops per 1,000 of population in order to keep the peace in an occupied country. This means that Iraq needs at least 500,000 to maintain stability. But Rumsfeld ignored the experts and went ahead with his plan. As a result, Iraq is chaotic and anarchic, Iraqis are being killed in ever greater numbers while US troops and contractors and other foreign civilians are also being slain by insurgents whose ranks are swelling due to rising opposition to the murderous occupation.

To make matters worse, major improvements in Iraq's internal security situation are unlikely because Rumsfeld, having failed to learn his lesson, plans to scaledown the US presence on the ground and replace US and allied troops with Iraqi Civil Defence cadres and party militias, which should be dissolved instead of incorporated into the security apparatus. Once the US hands over "sovereignty" to an Iraqi administration, appointed or elected, the militias could very well remain under the control of their parent political parties and movements which are vying for power. This would "Lebanonise" the situation in Iraq, depriving the country of a national security force directed by the central government and could lead to civil strife.

While The Associated Press fatality figures for 2003-2004 are shocking, the world should be prepared for rising body counts from Iraq. George Bush broke Iraq. He has no notion of how to fix it and its people are paying the price.

This article was originally published in the Thursday, May 27, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.